


On A Friday We Call Good

by gaialux



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Curtain Fic, Depression, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Permanent Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 18:10:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 42,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7325308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gaialux/pseuds/gaialux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One unlucky moment. That's all it took to turn Dean's life upside down. Sam seems to be on board with the fallout; insisting they take a break from hunting and set up in suburbia. While Sam finds himself assimilating, Dean is far from Mr. Domestic. If he can't hunt - if he can't save people - he has nothing. Or so he thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On A Friday We Call Good

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: Permanent injury (leg amputation), a suicide attempt (OD), alcoholism, themes of PTSD and depression.
> 
> Written for the spn_j2_bigbang. I've been working on this fic for years. The first draft was mostly completed in November 2013, stowed away, and brought back now and then to be poked out. I hope I've done it justice. Thank you to my beautiful artist and beta selecasharp. Please check it out [HERE](http://teashopmuses.livejournal.com/98282.html) Set during a canon divergent season 2.

_What if I knew how to yell,_  
What would I pray?  
What if I knew how to tell,  
What would I say?  
\- Be The One, The Fray.

 

It happens on a Friday. That’s the only thing Sam’s sure of; a Friday because it’s the day the museum held its tours, the day when they could double-check it was the ghost of Mae Wallace they were about to salt and burn and not just a freak of the lights or a show created early for Halloween.

How exactly it happens, Sam still has no idea. One minute they’re cruising down the freeway, Dean with music cranked so loud Sam can’t hear himself think. Sam stares out the window and watches the sunset, thinks about Dad for the half a second he allows himself to when he’s not alone.

What happens next is a blur of speed, sound, and light. Dean’s voice in his ear, the crunch of metal. Something snaps and the memories here are fuzzier. Sam can only recall the sounds Dean makes as air is pressed forcefully through his clenched teeth. The veins and tendons in Dean’s neck are highlighted and bulged as Dean contorts his body with a harsh grip on his leg. _Crash_ , is all Sam’s mind wants to supply. _Crash, crash, crash._

Just like the last time.

“Dean!” Sam yells. There’s no response. Dean doesn’t even turn to face him.. “Dean!”

Finally, Dean looks over with wide and red-rimmed eyes that won’t focus.

"Dean!" Sam yells again.

Dean looks away from him again, back down at his leg, and Sam's eyes follow. They confirm what he thinks; something has hit them. Something hard, something fast, something solid, slamming into the driver’s side of the car. Dean’s not moving.

Sam's right on the border of panic and it swells more and more as he stares at Dean’s leg. The leg that he now sees is coated in a thick, almost black, blood. The leg is twisted in an angle that makes nausea rise in Sam’s throat. He pulls his eyes away. He needs to help Dean. He needs to help _them_.

Sam reaches into his pocket. When his hand connects with blood - probably Dean's blood - Sam clamps down his mouth and breathes out through his nose. When he breathes in again, everything around him is that bitter, copper smell he'll always remember. The smell he's been used to since childhood, but Dean's blood is different. Everything about this is so much worse.

Eventually his hand connects with the cell, and he pulls it open, his hands tacky with already dying blood. _Dean's_ already drying blood. _9-1-1_. He recites the number to himself as he presses down, fingers shaking. The number pad gets splotched with his fingerprints, dark red and swirled out, like some particularly sadistic fingerprinting at the police station.

It rings once, twice, and by the third time Sam's ready to throw it away and haul them out of the car himself. Then: "911. What’s the address of the emergency?” A pause. “Sir, we need an address.”

Then Sam realises he's already speaking, the words of " _Dean_ " and " _it's gonna be okay_ " and "d _on't move_ " finally reaching his ears. He doesn't even recognise his voice, it's way too tight and constricted to be his.

“Sir. What is the address of the emergency?”

He swallows down and tries to think. What did the woman say? "We--we've been in a car crash.”

“I need to know your location. Do you know where you are?”

“Um.” His head is starting to hurt, pounding loudly in his ears and burning at the base of his neck. Maybe he’s done spinal damage, _oh fuck_ , but he can’t think about that. Dean’s groan fills his ears, and he can hear the pain in the sound. Sam can’t worry about himself. He turns to look out the window, but there’s nothing there. Just an endless expanse of road, but no traffic. They were heading along the Central Expressway. How did they end up here?

“I…I don’t know,” he says into the phone. “We were coming from Sunnyvale, along the Central Express. Must’ve got off the road. You have to send an ambulance - my brother--”

“Okay, sir, thank you.” She’s calm over the phone while Sam can hardly breathe.  “Now, sir, what’s the phone number I can call you back on?”

Sam doesn’t even know what cell phone he’s using, so he rattles off one that he’s memorised and thinks that it’s probably Dean’s.

“Can I ask who I’m speaking with?”

“What?” His brain isn’t working anymore, and can’t stop looking at Dean. Dean’s face is turned away and pressed up to the glass window that has cracks all down one side. They’re tiny and white, like spiderwebs, and Sam thinks he should be pulling Dean away but he can’t make his arms work.

“Your name, sir, what’s your name?”

“S--Sam. Sam.” He nods to himself, but this makes his head pound even more. Maybe he should have made a different name, what pseudonym were they going with for this case?

“Okay, Sam. Now, you said you were in a car crash, is that correct?”

Now she’s sounding like the cops, like she’s going to blame him for something. He doesn’t even care. He just wants an ambulance. Now.

“Yes!” He’s surprised with himself for being able to yell when his throat feels so rough. “Send an ambulance, please. My brother, he’s hurt.”

She seems to ignore him. “Sam, were you driving?”

“Just send a fucking ambulance!” He’s gripping the phone so tightly his knuckles ache. “We were in a crash, my brother’s leg is trapped. He’s bleeding - bad. Please. Just send an ambulance. Here. Now.”

“We’ve dispatched emergency services to your location.”

Those words almost make Sam crumble in relief. He turns back to Dean, his arms finally back to working, and holds his brother’s shoulder. “It’s going to be okay, Dean, the ambulance is coming.”

Dean makes no response.

::

"Mr. Perry?"

Dean looks over and squints to make out the doctor walking into the room. He can't focus on anything, not even Sam’s labored breathing to his left. Dean just nods, because that probably is his name of the day.

"I need to ask your brother to step outside for a moment."

Dean feels Sam tense up but it hurts too much to try moving back to look at him. "Why?"

"Your doctor still requires you to be in your bed for observation. You've suffered a very nasty concussion that could potentially lead to side-effects. Your brother will be right here when you come back."

"I feel fine."

Dean closes his eyes and wants to sleep. His whole body feels strange. It's not even like pain anymore. It’s a floating, twisting sensation that moves throughout him and yells wrong when he spends too much time focusing on it.

"Sam," he tries to bark out, but it sounds more like a groan.

"Yeah, Dean?" Sam sounds completely different. "What's wrong?"

"Go." Dean wants to sleep. He wants Sam gone. At least for now, at least until he figures out what the hell is going on with his body.

"What?" Now Sam sounds confused.

"Go and see the doctor," Dean says, struggling with each word and gritting his teeth. He shouldn't be talking; he should be sleeping. "You’re no use to me if you're passed out."

The bed shifts, but Dean keeps his eyes tightly closed and focuses on the losing battle to not struggle breathing. When Sam leaves, the first thing he's asking the doctor is what the fuck's up with this strange-ass sensation moving through his body. It's mostly focused on his right leg and makes it feel so heavy he can't even move.

"I'll be back in like a minute."

Dean doesn't respond, but he hears the squeak of Sam’s boots on the linoleum and a curtain being pulled back, the sound perforating right into his head like the worst hangover he’s ever had and then some.

"Mr. Perry, I'm Dr. Connolly. I'm an orthopedic surgeon here at St. Anthony's hospital."

Dean vaguely remembers the name of the hospital from the ambulance ride over, but most of it’s fuzzy. Now it's starting to piece together that this feeling was probably from the morphine they said they gave him. Movies told him that morphine was supposed to give you one awesome high. He wasn't so sure. He cracks open an eye and looks at Dr. Connolly.

"Dean, you’ve been in a very serious car crash."

 _Duh_. The other doctors already him that. So did the paramedics. Ditto with the nurses. Dean's waiting for the janitor to come in and announce it, just to keep everyone in the loop. The impala is trashed - Dean remembers that part.

The doc is still going, "This crash caused severe damage to your right leg. Much of the tissue died, and what remains has been torn beyond repair. The same can be said about the vessels and ligaments. Mr. Perry, we see your best course of action as an above-the-knee amputation to be scheduled immediately."

Dean stopped listening at the words "beyond repair", his other eye flying open and the headache forgotten. When his mind starts working again, it settles on the word "amputation", and the effects of the morphine start flowing until Dean leans over into the bucket Dr. Connolly has lifted and throws up. When he settles back down, all he tastes and feels is the sourness of bile.

"No," is the only word he can form. "No, no, no, no."

Dr. Connolly’s face is expressionless when he speaks. "Without it you could develop gangrene which will cause many more problems and still require the amputation to be performed. Mr. Perry, without this operation prognosis says you will die."

Dean closes his eyes and lets it be dark. He blocks out the beeping on the monitor by his head, the sound of people moving in the corridor, the clearing of the doctor's throat. He blocks out the world because that place hasn’t been great for him in many, many years.

"Mr. Perry." Dean wishes the doctor would stop calling him that. Especially when he's talking about something like this. "We need you to sign some forms allowing this procedure to happen. If you have any questions, now is the time to ask them."

Dean tries to keep ignoring him, but it gets harder with every passing second. Every sound around him seems magnified; especially the footsteps. When he hears boots he thinks it's Sam back again, and he can't let Sam see him like this. He can't let Sam know he's going to die. His brother, who saved his fucking worthless life only a few months ago. He lost his father because of it - because Dean was an idiot and didn't do what he should have, because he didn't follow the Winchester family rules.

"We need to get this surgery underway as soon as possible," Dr. Connolly says. "The longer we leave this, the more damage that could occur.”

"Surgery?"

Guess he was right about one of those footfalls. Dean opens his eyes to look at Sam. He can't think of any answer so he lets the doctor do the talking and stares at the whitewash wall in front of him. He lets the words wash over him, in one ear and out the other, without stalling any time in his mind.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Perry. This is between your brother and me."

"Dean. What does he mean, surgery? What's wrong?"

Dean doesn't look at Sam, but he does speak. "Tell him."

Sam might as well know; it’s not like he’ll escape knowing sooner or later.

Dr. Connolly lets out a soft sigh. He sounds tired. Great. Dean's being spoken to by a tired surgeon. "Your brother has irreversible damage to the tendons, ligaments, and tissue in his right leg. We can't repair it and, with time, his entire leg will become gangrenous. Amputation is our best course of action, and we need your brother to consent to this."

Dean can hear Sam sucking in a breath and doesn’t look over. Let Sam deal with it. Dean's tired of having to make all the decisions in this family. He should have died on that road back when it happened the first time. Maybe this is his punishment for cheating death finally come due.

"Dean." How did Sam get back beside his hospital bed? "Dean. You gotta do this, man."

For now Dean's not speaking. If he speaks things have to start changing. If he shuts his mouth and focuses on the stains on the wall everything stays the same. At least until the gangrene hits and he dies.

Dean turns his head slowly to look at Sam. "What do I do?" It sounds even more pathetic out loud than in his mind. What the fuck's he doing putting this on Sam's shoulders? Dean shakes his head but doesn't take the words back.

"The surgery." Sam says it like it shouldn't even be an option, not even a thought. Just something Dean agrees to, like picking up the nearest hunt or fucking the hot girl making eyes at him from across the bar.

"It's amputation, Sammy." He hates sounding so lost, and especially hates the way his voice cracks on his brother's name.

"I'm not an idiot." Sam's eyes stay soft. "I didn't think you were, either. You're not dying.” A pause. "Sign the forms."

Dean flickers his look over to Dr. Connolly. "Amputation, huh?"

Sam lets out a sigh and it hits Dean's face. Warmer than anything else in the room, and stronger than it technically should be. Dean adds that to the list of things to blame the morphine on.

"Yes. I've performed transfemoral amputation many times in the past and it is a relatively simple procedure given its magnitude. You will be given a general anaesthesia before an incision is made--”

“Don’t wanna hear it.” And Dean doesn’t, not at all. If he’s being forced into this, the Magnum is going to shoot him in the back of the head, not through the mouth. “Just give me the forms.”

When the clipboard is thrust into his hands he signs quickly, not reading it over. Sam starts mumbling over his shoulder and Dean wants to tell him to shut up but doesn't. He listens to some of the words, that the surgery will last approximately two hours, that he will be sliced from above the knee (wording may or may not be correct), that he will speak with a prosthetist when he wakes up again. There's more, but Dean can't handle so much information. One last Dean Perry on the dotted line and he's signed away his life. He remembers only one more thing that comes from Sam's mouth.

"Here." Dean's hands feel heavy when he reaches up and pulls the amulet from around his neck, bunching up the cord and handing it to Sam. He follows with his ring. "Look after them."

Sam stares at them when he nods and Dean's just grateful that he doesn't have to say anything else. His throat feels too tight to make speech possible, and even moving his hands has completely exhausted him. So that's it. That's his life.

"See you soon."

::

They make Sam go back into the ER after they wheel Dean away, telling him that he’s as white as the walls and needs to rest. How do they expect him to rest after all of this? His mind is spinning and it still all feels like a dream, especially the part where he forces Dean to undergo the surgery. He’ll never forget the look of fear Dean gave him when he agreed with Dr. Connolly.

Sam’s hand twists into the amulet around his neck.

::

"Mr. Perry, your brother's surgery went well." The nurse - Elaine - puts her head around the light blue curtain, a soft smile on her face.

Sam practically jumps off the bed. "Can I see him?"

She nods. "Yes, but only for a very short period of time. He needs his rest and is probably asleep right now. Don't expect too much."

Sam nods about twenty times in two seconds. He doesn't care. As long as Dean's alive and Sam can see him, that's all he's concerned about. He wants to know that his brother is going to be okay, no matter what's happened over the last twenty-four hours. Sam doesn't even think it's been that long; maybe more like four or five. Crazy. So crazy.

Elaine leads him down a long corridor not nearly as fast as Sam wants her to. The lead in his legs has fled and he's ready to run wherever he needs to, a surge of adrenaline hitting him like after a hunt. The doctor's cleared him of everything except the concussion, but his head doesn't even hurt anymore. He feels fine, better than fine, and thinks it must be those painkillers they gave him that's given him a buzz. He doesn't even feel this good when he's drunk.

All of that disappears the second he steps foot into the ICU.

It's just the atmosphere of it that hits him first. The way it’s almost silent except for the light scuffle of feet and the buzzing and beeping of monitors. It’s too dark, it’s too hot, and Sam feels like the walls are getting smaller and smaller with every step he takes.

Of course Dean is right at the end.

Sam has to freeze and take in all of Dean before he gets too close. His eyes start at his brother's face and trail downward, landing on the thick, white cast covering the entirety of Dean's right leg.

What used to be his leg.

 _Fuck. No._ He can't think like that. He's still trying to convince himself that it's one horrible, overly-long nightmare that he'll wake up from very soon. He doesn't question the stupidity or immaturity of that, because he can't. He can't give up on the small possibility that it's all false. _Please, God, let it all be an illusion_. A punishment for whatever I've done. Just let it be okay. Please.

Nothing changes within the time he keeps standing there, and Sam finally brings himself to walk forward until he can sit on the hard plastic chair beside Dean and just stare at his face.

God doesn't care. He didn't care the first time Sam lost Dean, and he's not about to care now. He's not just giving Sam a nightmare, he's giving Sam an entirely shattered life. And Sam is being a selfish jerk for thinking like that, because it's not him who just lost a limb.

Dean hasn't looked this peaceful since they were kids, and that twists knives into Sam's chest.

::

There’s a split-second, perfect moment when Dean forgets where he is. It feels like waking up in any motel room in any state; the first few seconds where he forgets about the monsters, the ghosts, the ghouls. Sam is asleep across from him. Safe. Everything has fallen into place exactly where Dean needs them to.

Then there’s unfamiliar hands on his arm and Dean’s eyes shoot all the way open. He remembers then where he is and wishes - wishes so badly - that he didn’t.

"It's okay, Dean. You're in St. Anthony's hospital in California and have just woken up from surgery. Take it easy."

She presses a gentle hand to the centre of his chest until he lies back down, even though every fibre in him says to fight back. Seems like when everything else is gone, hunter instincts are the only things that stick around.

"Dr. Connolly is coming to speak to you shortly and, if everything's okay, you'll be moving back to the general hospital very soon." He must look terrified or something, because she adds, "Don't worry, all your vitals look completely normal. You're very healthy and that's going to aid your recovery."

"I lost a leg." He doesn't mean to say it, but it's like his mind has connected to his mouth and isn't letting go. "How the fuck do I recover from that?"

She wavers only slightly. "Dr. Connolly will discuss the surgery with you and then send in a social worker for you to speak with. I know that things might seem very dark right now, but it will get better."

"Stow it," he mutters, nothing left in him to be polite. "You know shit."

The nurse finishes whatever she's doing and leaves without another word. Dean can't say he blames her, but he can't bring himself to really regret being such a dick. She gets to go home with two legs,and  very likely to a family she can still provide for. What's Dean got? A brother who he can't protect anymore and a body that's going nowhere fast. Yeah. Perfect. Fucking perfect.

He still doesn’t know why he went through with the surgery in the first place.

Dean doesn’t look down, but he knows the cast is there. It’s so huge and vibrantly white that he can see it from the corner of his vision no matter which way he turns his head. He doesn’t even get why it’s there;  it’s not like there’s a leg to protect. There’s nothing under it. He knows that much. Just half a leg, covered because they think he can’t face the horror.

They’re probably right.

The curtain is pulled back again and Dr. Connolly is standing there. The white lab coat back on instead of the blue scrubs. How many hours do surgeons work, anyway? "How are you feeling, Mr. Perry?"

It’s Dean. "Fine."

“Do you need more painkillers?”

“No.”

Dr. Connolly nods and writes something on the same clipboard he gave to Dean to sign away his life on. When he looks back up there’s the most sorry-ass excuse for a smile on his face.

“The nurse says you’re looking well, all things considered, “ he says, smug smile still there. He must do this a lot, going around cutting off people’s limbs and then smiling like he can only see the paycheck. “We should be able to move you back to the general department where you will begin physical therapy and meet with your prosthetist.”

Dean’s got no idea what he’s supposed to say to that, so he quits looking at the doctor and goes back to the wall. This one is actually white, like it's been recently painted. They probably care more about people in the ICU, maybe they think a good coat of paint will make them get better quicker. Then again, they're shipping him out just after he's woken up so he doesn't know how much time most patients get to look at and appreciate the wall-work.

"Do you have any questions, Mr. Perry?" Dr. Connolly taps his pen on the clipboard, Dean wonders if it's to try and get his attention.

"No." He doesn't look over.

"I'll send the nurse back in."

Another sound of the curtain being pulled open and then closed, and Dean is left alone in the room again. He likes this better, definitely; more time to think about the cast, the injury, and what the impala looked like the last time he saw it. Just peachy, all of it. Dean still doesn't know what the fuck happened and nobody's answering his questions. Not even Sam. Where the hell is Sam? Probably dead. Dean did all this for nothing.

The nurse is back. Dean takes a brief glance at her and she's still smiling, her short brown hair bouncing with each step she takes. She says good morning again, she says that he's looking good, she says that Dr. Connolly has given his all clear. Then she puts the rails up on his bed and says he's moving back to the main part of the hospital where he'll be trapped for the next six weeks.

Dean wants that Magnum.

As they roll him through the hospital, Dean keeps his eyes closed. It's like some childish game of _'if I can't see you, then you can't see me'_. They can't see him weak or pathetic or broken. A hunter who can no longer do anything. That's all he is. Worthless.

"Okay, Dean, we're going to move you onto this bed." That's a different voice from the first nurse, and Dean opens one eye. There's three of them now, two girls and a guy. All nurses basing on their uniform. Now he needs three people to look after him. Worthless.

"It'll be fine, we'll help you," the first nurse says.

Dean didn't think he was giving away that much emotion on his face. What is it? Fear? Hatred? Pain? He can't feel much of anything, so they must be seeing more than he knows. How's he going to move with just one leg? Now it's all starting to hit him and that pain Dr. Connolly brought up is ebbing through his spine and shooting down his leg. There is no leg! That’s not fucking possible!

Then it's the guy's turn to speak about what's going to happen, like they think he can get through because he has a dick and Dean has a dick and that makes them best buddies for life. "The best thing you can do for yourself is to get moving ASAP. You've been assigned a physical therapist, a prosthetist, and you've got Dr. Connolly. We're just here for this."

"Just get it over with," he growls. He's sick of all these questions, of everyone treating him like he needs everything spelt out slowly and clearly. He wants sleep, he wants to disappear until all of this is somehow over.

Two of the nurses take his arms, and the third both his legs. He's never felt so small, so useless, so incapable in his entire life. Not even when he'd have to lean on Sam or Dad after a hunt gone wrong and be forced to lie on the back seat of the car until they could stitch him up back at the motel.

He can't even try and block it out - hyper-aware of every movement - but when they get him into a sitting position it all goes away because he's just focused on not screaming. He has never, in his entire life, felt a pain as severe as what he's feeling in his leg right about now. It's burning fire licking his skin from all sides, joined by the pounding of a hammer slamming into his knee over and over again. He bites his lips so hard all he can taste is blood and the moment he's vertical again on the new bed he squeezes his eyes and wills back the tears that escape.

 _Holy shit_. This isn't going to work.

"We'll get the doctor to up your pain meds," one the the nurses says. Dean thinks it's the original one from the ICU, but he's in too much pain to place her voice to an image of a person.

Yes, pain meds, that sounds good. The fire is slowly cooling so it's just constant throbbing from his hip downward, all through the cast. _Phantom pains_. That phrase also came from Sam's mumbling before the surgery, Dean remembers that. Common, no reason, no cure.

Is this what he has to put up with for this rest of his life? This level of pain? Dean refuses to open his eyes, not even when the doctor comes in and explains there's now a button near his finger and he can press it for pain relief. Dean's still pressing it when a familiar voice comes into the room.

"Hey Dean."

"Sam." He doesn't actually mean to say it, but the drugs are keeping his mouth slack. "Hey man."

"Hey." He sounds so awkward.

Dean listens to him move to the side of the bed, hearing the screech of a chair being pulled across the floor. He opens his eyes just enough to see a slit of Sam, but not enough to let Sam know they're open. He doesn't know why he bothers, but he does. He still has some sense of control over this situation. Even if it's something as petty as deciding when Sam knows he's paying attention or not. Pathetic. So fucking pathetic.

“I know you’re awake.”

“Shut up.”

Sam laughs, but it sounds caught in his throat and not at all natural, the type of laughter that your chest doesn’t want to let out. Dean still focuses on it, because it’s better than nothing, and opens his eyes.

"How are you doing?"

Dean tries not to seethe. "I will punch the next person that asks me that."

"Sorry." He looks it, a little too much. "I'm glad you got out of surgery okay."

"Okay". That's the perfect word that describes it. _OK_. Okay means that he managed to kill the ghost but lost three victims in the process, okay means one demon attack in a year, okay means he passed school with the bare minimum. Okay does not mean waking up in hospital with one leg gone.

“Yeah,” Dean finds himself saying eventually.

Sam smiles for no reason that Dean can see and holds out something in his hand. "I brought you pie." He reaches down. "And coffee. Better than hospital food, and your doctor says you can eat."

Dean takes them because he won't leave Sam hanging, but he has no appetite. Apple pie. It looks generic as hell, a green packaging with no brand name. It's still pie, his mind tries to supply, but his stomach isn't going to accept anything.

"You still in the hospital?" he asks Sam instead, putting the coffee on the table near his head and trying not to cringe at how even the slightest movement shoots pain downwards.

"No,” Sam replies. “I’m renting a room, though; they give them out to people who have family staying more than month. It doesn’t cost much, and the Perrys are paying.”

It’s already starting, Sam’s already re-arranging his life plans. Dean’s not even going to blame him if he tries to run again, to get the hell away from this. He’s even prepared to encourage him, but something inside doesn’t let him say that.

“Why didn’t you just get a motel room?” Dean asks instead.

"Cheaper," Sam says, and he takes a sip of coffee. "And closer, so I can be around."

He doesn't add that it needs to be closer because they don't have a car. It's on the tip of Dean's tongue to ask what happened to her, but the drugs must be wearing off because he manages to hold it back. He presses the pain-relief button again.

"I'm not planning to be here for a month," Dean says.

"I don't think you have much say in it."

"It’s my life."

Dean reaches for the coffee, but the movement pulls something and he can't help but cringe - at least he manages to hold back any noise. Sam shoots out of the chair regardless and grabs one of Dean's arms.

"Hey, just lie back down."

Dean yanks his arm away before moving back to a lying position.

"Why won't you let me help you?" Sam asks.

Dean looks away, the coffee forgotten.

::

The next morning leaves Dean with the same thoughts as waking in the ICU, but they don’t last as long. Maybe half a second, and that’s if he’s being generous. He can see a motel room, he can see Sam, and then it's back to the beeping and buzzing and the overly bright fluorescent lights hitting every inch of his body. Sam isn't there.

"What would you like for breakfast today, Mr. Perry?"

Dean can't tell if he woke up to the sound of someone dragging away the clanging tray or wheels or whether they hang around for the moment he wakes up. Either way, he's still not hungry.

"Nothing for me," he says, his voice still thick with sleep and he tries to roll over before remembering and the pain hits him again. It's hard to tell if it's all purely physical.

"You have to eat," the woman carrying the tray says. "We have cereal, fruit, and toast. What condiment do you like most?"

Dean shakes his head and settles further into the bed. If anything gets him to eat, it's not going to be hospital food.

There's a clatter of metal and then she settles a tray in front of Dean. "I'll leave this here for you, dear. Please try to eat something." She pats his arm and leaves.

Dean takes one bite of toast and refuses to eat again, because sitting up fucking hurts.

"How are you today, Mr. Perry?"

Dean's fist clenches but he holds it down. "Can you call me Dean?"

Dr. Connolly nods. "Yes, Dean. How are you today?"

He's going to punch this guy square in the face, it's only a matter of time. "Great. Perfect. Completely good as new. Is that what you want to hear?"

Dr. Connolly nods again, but this time it's not in agreement. It's more like pity, and Dean hates that with everything in him. "I'd like to know the truth, as we are working toward your best possible outcome."

"And what is that? Huh?" Dean sits up, but this time he's slow and doesn't move his hips. "I'm pretty sure legs don't just grow back, so what is the best possible outcome for me? Being able to move myself out of bed without needing three people to hold me like I'm some fucking invalid?"

The speech makes him exhausted and he throws his head back onto the pillow, breathing steadily to return his heart to its normal pace. There’s a thick lump in his throat that he can’t work over and his eyes burn, but he’s not about to cry. No way.

“It’s whatever you want to get out of this, Dean. We don’t work miracles, but we do work medicine, and some people would say the results can resemble the same.”

“Those people are idiots,” Dean says into his pillow.

"We have a chaplain here in the hospital if you'd like--"

"I'll trust your miracle medicine before I let God deal with this."

Another nod. He's starting to resemble a bobble-head doll. "You have a session with Dr. Vex following breakfast, he's the physical therapist here. I just have to check that everything is draining well--"

Dean's stomach churns. "Can you just not tell me what's going on? Do what you gotta do, but shut up about it."

For once Dr. Connolly listens and Dean looks at his pillow while he gets prodded and poked across both his legs. Finally, Dr. Connolly leaves with one last nod and Dean's left to wait for this Dr. Vex guy that is going to make him a-okay again.

Whatever. Dean gave up waiting for miracles a long time ago.

Being alone, even for those few minutes, seems to make everything worse. The cast feels heavy and the pain button isn't doing anything, no matter how many times he reaches for the little button.

They must have moved him in the night, he realises now, because he's angled differently than when he went to sleep. Slowly, his mind is moving slowly for him to only realise that now, and it's terrifying. He's still a hunter and he needs his reflexes - his sharp mind - otherwise he's lost it all. Otherwise he's completely worthless.

"Hi Dean, I'm Dr. Vex."

Dean blinks and there's someone standing there, his hand outstretched from a coat that's too long. Dean hesitates before taking it, the handshake becoming more a touching of hands than any real greeting.

"Your doctor says the surgery went well, so we're going to work on getting you back up as soon as we can." Dr. Vex speaks so fast most of the words blur into a jumble and it takes Dean's “already slow mind a long time to piece it all together.

Don’t I even get a day to sleep?" he mumbles.

Dr. Vex smiles. "I know it might seem like everything is happening so fast, but the sooner we can get started the better it'll be for everyone. We're not doing much today, just getting those bandages changed and wrapping. Keeping pressure is important for swelling to stay down so your prosthesis can work better with your residual limb."

“That isn’t a cast?” Dean doesn’t look, he just points. To be fair, he never really looked at it. One eyeful of the thick white material and that’s all he ever wanted to see.

So this is Dr. Connolly’s counterpart, with head shaking instead of head nodding. “No. You’ve had an open amputation with the hopes of avoiding infection.”

“Right.”

Maybe if he just blocks everything this Dr. Vex is saying then it’ll fade away and Dean can keep functioning like nothing has ever happened. It still hasn’t hit and he doesn’t think it ever will. Maybe it’s better that way. Dean closes his eyes.

“As the days pass we’ll move up to doing more things: strength, mobility, transfers - and you’ll be fitted for your prosthesis.”

_Shut up._

“Do you have any questions?”

Why the fuck does everyone keep asking him that? Of course he has questions! Where’s his car? What exactly happened on that road? Why the fuck couldn’t they save his leg?! But he doesn’t voice any of them because they can’t be answered - or at least they won’t be. Nobody cares enough.

“No.” Dean stays deadpan.

At least this doctor seems to get the picture, because he goes about whatever the hell he has to do without talking. The drugs also seem to have taken effect, because the sensation in Dean’s leg feels likes nothing more than uncomfortable, unfamiliar pressure. He can deal with uncomfortable and unfamiliar - he has to.

"Can I come in?"

Great, another new voice. Another person asking if Dean has any questions, if he's going okay, if he's forgotten yet about the fact he can only hop where he wants to go.

"Sure," Dr. Vex says. "Dean, this is Lori; a social worker here at St. Anthony's."

Dean opens his eyes again and sees the woman, finally someone not dressed in a white, but just as pale. Light blue on her shirt, grey on her skirt. He closes his eyes again and hopes they think the only thing he wants to do is sleep. Because he does.

"Hi Dean." He hears her come closer.

"Alright, I'm done here. I'll be back after lunch to see you again, Dean, and we can go over some more things. You rest."

Dean doesn't do so much as nod when Dr. Vex leaves the room. What's the point? Like the guy said, he's coming back. He's gonna open up his leg again, and he'll make it hurt the next time. Dean knows he will.

"Are you going to open your eyes for me?" Lori asks.

"I'd rather not."

She laughs lightly, nothing like Sam's strangled outtake of air. Dean wants to ask her about Sam but he bites his tongue. "Okay then. How about I do the talking?" Dean doesn't respond. "You were in a car crash and had to have an above-the-knee amputation."

Like he doesn't already know all that. It's been drilled into his mind again and again by every doctor, nurse, and now social worker until it's the only thing Dean can think about. _Crash…leg…fucked up_. That's all it really comes down to when he pulls it apart and lays it out flat. He just wants to know how it happened, and nobody's telling him that. Nobody's telling him why it had to happen.

"How did I crash?" Dean asks, voice still croaky.

"I think the police will be here to speak to you about that later today."

Dean opens his eyes and forgets, yet again, that he can't sit up. The pain hits him and he rolls to his side with it, leg and eyes stinging until Lori presses the button to call in a nurse and two come running.

"Mr. Perry, you have to try and stay still unless someone is asking you to move," one of them says. The other is moving Dean’s leg.

"I didn't plan to move!" Dean hisses through gritted teeth.

They leave him and Lori alone without any further words. Dean breathes sharply through his nose until whatever they put into his vein must start working and he finds himself relaxing. He’s a walking meth lab by this point.

"You don't have to worry about the police," Lori says softly. "It's just routine, don't be stressed. I'll be here with you during it, and you just have to answer their questions best you can. I do want to ask you one thing, though. What's your address? Your brother hasn't been able to supply it and you didn't have your license on your person."

 _Shit_. He has no idea what cover story they've got going for the Perrys because everything is murky. He doesn't even remember when Perry became the latest alibi. Sam should - Sam _would_.

"Can I see my brother?" Dean asks.

"I think he'll be in shortly. Dean, can you please answer my question? It's just so we can work out what changes we'll need to work through when you go back home.”

Of course he’s not going to tell her. Not without letting everything fall into place first. And now the police are coming. Everything’s getting more fucked up with each passing minute. He remains silent.

Dean doesn’t think he’s ever been so relieved to see Sam the minute he walks through that curtain. His brother completely ignores Lori and pulls up the seat he seems to have claimed for himself, situating him as close as possible without sitting on the bed. It’s after he’s actually seated that Dean watches Sam turn to Lori.

“Who are you?” Dean’s normally polite brother has lost it all. Dean might actually be smug if his mind weren’t still reeling at the thought of the police being involved.

“I’m Lori.” She has a bright smile on her face as she extends her hand toward Sam. “I’m a social worker here to talk with your brother. And you.”

Sam doesn’t take her hand. “Why are you here?”

Now it might be getting a little far. “Sam,” Dean says.

Sam looks at Dean from the corner of his eye, then takes Lori’s hand. “Sorry. Hi. Uh, I’m Sam.”

Her smile didn’t falter the entire time. “Nice to meet you Sam. I was just explaining to Dean how everything is going very well with his early recovery, but there may need to be alterations to your home life following his discharge from hospital. Which won’t be happening for a while yet.” She seems to add the last part quickly, as an afterthought.

“Sure,” Sam says, his hand curling up in the sheets of Dean’s bed. “Anything.”

Dean tunes back out and lets Sam deal with it all.

::

Hospital food is worse than what Sam was given in the middle school cafeteria. He tried the meatloaf given to Dean - because it really couldn’t have been as bad as his brother was complaining about - and vowed to never force Dean to eat another one of them for as long as he’s in the hospital. The vending machines and kiosk aren’t much good, either, but a nearby cafe supplies meals that are halfway decent and Dean does more than pick at them when Sam goes back to his room later that day.

“I spoke to the police,” Sam says when Dean has a mouthful of tuna salad and can’t fight back.

“What?” Dean still manages, specks of food flying, and Sam screws up his nose. It’s so normal Sam almost forgets they’re in a hospital. This could be any hunt with the police on their ass.

_Only it’s not._

“They don’t have much to go by yet, but it wasn’t your fault. It was a t-intersection, probably some drunk driver coming out of nowhere.”

He watches Dean’s throat work over as he swallows. “There was no other car.”

“The police think they must have driven off.” They didn’t actually say that, they didn’t say much of anything. Mostly they wanted to talk to Dean and Sam wouldn’t let them. Sam’s prepared to try his hardest to make sure Dean never has to talk to them.

“That’s impossible, Sam, and you know it. Unless I hit the back of them.”

“It’s not impossible,” Sam says, and he’s fully aware of how childish he sounds but doesn’t care.

Dean throws his fork into the plastic bowl still half-filled with food. It’s been a couple of days and Sam thinks his brother’s already losing weight, or at least looking paler. As far as Sam knows, Dean hasn’t left the bed. Of course he can’t really be certain because Dean keeps throwing him out, saying he needs to sleep. Sam sits in the corridor, drinks more coffee than a human should be able to handle, and waits until Dean changes his mind. He always does at some point within the day.

“Do the cops want to talk to me?” Dean asks.

“Not yet.” It’s not a lie.

“So that translates to you got rid of them?”

Sam smiles. “Yeah.”

Dean isn’t smiling. “I wanna know what happened, Sam. If they arrest me for it, fine. Do you really think they’d put me in prison? They’d probably feel sorry for me. Bastards.”

If there’s one reason Sam can deal with staying out in that corridor, drinking that endless amounts of murky coffee, it’s because Dean insists on talking like this. And Sam can’t tell him to shut up, because he knows how much his brother has been through.

“You’re still Dean,” he offers instead and tries to bore it into Dean’s mind through his eyes.

“Right.”

::

The first time Dean lets Sam into one of his physical therapy sessions, it's almost two weeks into the hospital stay. Sam is pacing everywhere his feet will take him, first around the tiny room he's renting from the hospital and then around the hospital grounds, smiling at the patients he walks past and hoping for good karma because he needs everything he can find.

After getting bored with all of that he goes back to the corridor, taking five paces either side of Dean's door until his brother gets into his wheelchair and gruffly states "C'mon" to Sam when Dr. Vex starts wheeling him away. Sam must stand there gaping for a good while because Dean punches him in the arm. "You coming or not, Sammy?"

Sam nods dumbly and follows every pace beside Dean, watching as his brother only ever stares straight ahead, hands clenching onto the arms of the wheelchair. Sam knows Dean can use it himself - he watched him through the silted blinds into his hospital room - but he never does out here and Sam doesn't ask. He doesn't think he'd get a straight answer even if he tried.

Then walk in silence to the rehabilitation unit and the reality of the world comes crashing back down.

"You can go if you want," Dean says then. Sam shakes his head; he's not going anywhere. "You'll be bored."

"I’d be more bored out there," Sam tells him. He shuffles over to a seat and sits, taut, his back straight up against the plastic and his body rigid. He hasn't been able to relax in weeks.

"It’s up to you," Dean says with a very definite look that Sam ignores. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

“Nothing to warn me about.” Sam settles back on the seat and wills himself to look calm and natural. Dean doesn’t need to be picking up on his crap. Sam’s not the one in the wheelchair.

It’s only once Dr. Vex closes the door that Dean takes hold of the wheels himself, pushing forward and gliding across the room. He’s really learned how to use that thing - manoeuvering around the bars and exercise ball - but Sam chooses to keep his mouth closed. He doesn’t think Dean would appreciate being told how well he can use a device he’d never touch if this crash hadn’t happened.

When Dr. Vex walks over to Dean, Sam finds himself fading into the background.

They’re not intentionally trying, Sam knows; especially Dean. Dean throws him glances that, in those split seconds, strip away whatever exterior he’s been keeping up for the past fortnight. Sam sees fear, uncertainty, and even anger clouding his brother’s face until Dean looks away and the walls build back up.

“Easy-peasy,” he says when Dr. Vex hands him the crutches.

What happens next looks anything but.

Dean takes the crutches okay, and slips his arms down until his hands can grasp on the jutting holds. Then Sam watches him take deep breaths that seem to go on and on in the still, silent room. Only then does Dean try to pull himself up, and it’s the slowest Sam’s ever seen his brother move.

When he gets one crutch solidly pushed into the ground and tries to place his weight on it, the other gives way and he has to stop. He does that three times before Dr. Vex gets it into his head that maybe Dean needs help. Dean glares at him, says “I’m fine”, and then Sam knows why the doctor has to take a step back.

Dean’s a stubborn bastard in all areas of life; of course this wouldn’t be any different.

Sam stays transfixed by it all, and doesn’t think he could speak even if Dean asked him to. For the first time in his life, Sam is left to watch his brother be the weak one in a situation. The usually in-control, strong, steady hunter that is his brother has been replaced by someone struggling to even stand. It twists something all through Sam and he’s just left numb; a shell with only eyes to see and ears to hear Dean’s strained breathing as the seconds tick by.

He wants to go and help him, but Dr. Vex must see because he gives Sam the slightest shake of his head. _No_ , he’s saying. _Dean has to be on his own_. That rule has never been followed and Sam’s not about to make a change, but when he lifts out of the seat even Dean turns to him. His eyes also echo the no.

So Sam stays there, pressed against the seat. He watches every movement of Dean as he attempts to do what his body has stopped allowing. The one good leg he still has moves fine, pressing into the ground, but the moment he tries to pull up it's just a slide of the other crutch. Over and over and over. Sam's nails dig through his jeans and into the skin on his thighs, but he hardly notices and doesn't care. He's just watching Dean, willing with his mind for his brother to just stand, dammit!

Eventually Dean does get the crutches under him, gets his body up, and Sam jumps out of his seat with a cheer being held in his throat. He wants to wrap his arms around Dean, wants to yell that his brother is still strong, no matter what has happened, but he stays still and silent with what is probably a stupid grin stuck to his face.

"So awesome, Dean," he does say.

The response he gets back from Dean makes him shrink back. More anger jutting through the veil he's put up, and redness creeping over his cheeks that could just as likely be from the exertion as an emotion-provoked blush. "It's just standing," he says.

Sam feels small and regrets the words. He's meant to be making sure that Dean thinks he's just as perfect as before, and that dropkick move is totally far from allowing it. Sam seethes and sits back down, telling himself to shut the fuck up and start supporting Dean like he should.

"Good, Dean," Dr. Vex says. "Put more weight on the right arm. Balance."

Dean's listening to Dr. Vex in the way he used to listen to Dad. Taking every order with a nod of his head and a follow up with the request. Dean might be stubborn but he’s not stupid, and that twist in Sam’s stomach is replaced with something he can only explain as pride and relief, spreading through his body and settling in his heart.

Dean is going to be okay. Sam’s sure of it.

::

At the end of the day Sam still ends up back in his rented room. He paces the floor for hours and then kicks out at the bed because he can’t yell at anything else. It’s in those nights - in those endless, dark, lonely hours - that he replays the crash over and over.

His memory comes in snippets, which the doctor said would be normal - side effects of the concussion and all. He’s trying to see how they were hit because he needs to answer Dean’s questions about it - he needs to give his brother something for once in his life - but all that comes to mind is coming to and staring at Dean’s bloodied, broken leg.

Waking up, the image doesn’t leave until he jogs around the hospital’s perimeter, showers, chokes down some form of breakfast, and Dean lets him into the room.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

::

By week three, Sam begins to make the phone calls. He starts with the most important - and the hardest.

Three rings.

“Hello?”

“Bobby,” Sam says, and realises how clogged his voice sounds. He clears his throat. “I…we should have called you earlier.”

“Sam?” Bobby’s voice brings him back some stability, and Sam’s mind stops swimming. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?"

“We…” Sam takes a breathe. There’s no point in avoiding the matter. “Me and Dean, we were in an accident.”

Silence. Sam takes it as his chance to just keep going, to get it all out. He doesn’t know how else he could do it.

“We crashed. And it was bad, Bobby. Real bad. Dean…he’s still in hospital. He lost his leg. Fuck - sorry - I didn’t know how to tell you…”

More silence. Sam needs to hear Bobby’s voice. If he can’t have Dean saying it, he needs someone else out there to tell him it’s all going to work out.

“Lost his leg?” Bobby’s voice is so quiet.

“The doctors said it was the only option.” Sam can still hear Dr. Connolly’s voice, incessant in his ear. “I wouldn’t let him die.”

“I’m not blaming you, Sam.” Sam can hear the distinct jangling of keys and he knows what’s coming next. “Where are you? What hospital?”

“No. Dean didn’t even want me to call.” Sam hates what he’s saying. These days he hates just about everything about himself. “But, uh, the impala…”

Sam cringes when he says that. It shouldn’t even compare to his brother, nowhere close, but deep down he thinks that Bobby knows where he’s coming from. That car means everything to Dean.

“How bad is she?” Bobby’s back to being Bobby, straightforward and staunch. Sam clings to it.

“Busted. They called me today, something about a twisted frame, destroyed alignment, all of it. I wanted to see if you’d look after her until Dean’s back on his - uh, until Dean can get there.”

“Of course I can.”

“Thank you.”

More awkward silence. Sam has no idea what to say next. He has nothing more to add. Dean’s in a hospital bed and wants to keep himself isolated from the world. Sam’s sure that if he wasn’t in the car on that night he’d be in the dark, too. If Dean could control it all, he’d just fade away. Sam’s not about to let that happen.

“I’ll keep you posted,” he tells Bobby. “Sorry for not telling you sooner.”

“You told me. That’s what matters.”

“Thanks, Bobby. For everything.”

“Call soon. Don’t be a stranger.”

“I will.”

He hangs up because it’s the only thing left to do and then slumps down onto the bed, head in hands. Now he has more phone calls to make. Places to make permanent. A home. Something that Sam always longed for and finally received, only to have it burn down six months later.

This is a second chance. One Sam doesn’t want.

::

Sam's not there on the day Dean gets fitted with his prosthesis. He finds out when Dr. Vex helps Dean with wheelchair to bed transfers, and Dean’s jeans pull up far enough that Sam can see the metal that's replaced where skin, flesh, and bone used to be.

"It's temporary," Dean says, his voice harsh.

Sam tries to smile. "Looks good." _Stupid, fucking stupid_ , and he wants the words back the moment they leave his mouth.

"Don't talk, Sam," Dean advises. Sam listens.

“Everything is going remarkably well,” Dr. Vex says as he jots something down on a sheet. “And you’re improving everyday with physical therapy.”

There’s been three separate occasions Sam has sat through a physical therapy session with his brother. It’s all been about learning to stand on his leg and then taking three of the slowest, most agonising steps Sam has ever seen forward. He still swells with all the possible pride in him when he sees Dean manage that.

“Can I leave the hospital?” Dean asks, yanking himself further back on the bed with his arms. All the wheelchair use has done something good; Dean’s biceps are bigger than Sam ever remembered. Sam shakes his head and looks at Dr. Vex instead.

“Not yet.” He smiles. “‘Remarkably well’ does not translate to ‘one-hundred-percent improvement’. Things like this need time. But you can walk around more if you feel up to it - go out into the gardens, get some more fresh air.”

Based on the look on his face, Dean doesn’t agree with that idea.

“Weather’s nice,” Sam offers weakly. “I’ve been running.”

“Don’t think I’ll be doing that ever again.”

Open mouth, insert foot. Sam grapples with something to say that will fix every stupid comment he’s made, but comes up blank.

Luckily, Dr. Vex thinks to save him. "Don't be so sure about that, Dean. People go on to live more or less the same lives following limb loss. A positive mindset works wonders." He stresses the last part and Dean rolls his eyes, like a petulant child - not like Sam can talk. "And," Dr. Vex adds, "I have someone you're going to meet shortly. His name is Chris Haames, a transfemoral amputee just like you. Lost his leg in a car accident just like you. Thought he'd never do much again, just like you."

"Well he sounds like a bucket of sunshine," Dean says. He darkens immediately. "I don't want to see him."

"Then you'll sit silently in a room and stare at each other." Dr. Vex writes one more swirling sentence and tucks the pen into his pocket. "He'll be here any minute now. And, before you ask, yes - it was intentional for me to warn you only seconds before. We don't need you running off."

Nobody seems to pick up on his insensitive comment about running and Sam decides not to rock the boat.

"Mr. Perry, would you come with me?" Dr. Vex is looking at Sam.

Sam never wants to leave when Dean isn’t the one kicking him out, but Dean’s not looking at either of them and Sam knows he needs to be alone. He gives Dean’s shoulder a small squeeze and follows Dr. Vex from the room.

“Lori wants to speak to you,” Dr. Vex says once the door is clicked to a close behind them. Sam can see Dean through the blinds, still staring forward. He wishes he knew what his brother was thinking.

“Yeah?” Sam doesn’t even try to hide the absent minded tone. He doesn’t care. She hasn’t helped them yet.

“While Mr. Haames is speaking to Dean she’d like to speak to you. Dean doesn’t seem up to offering information.”

Sam turns from the window and looks at the doctor. “My brother’s not exactly the chatty type. I’m not either.”

“You should consider talking to her.”

Sam doesn’t think he’ll have much of a choice in the matter, so he stays in the corridor outside Dean’s room even after Dr. Vex leaves. Maybe she can help him out with the thoughts that were plaguing him last night; that there’s no possible way they can afford all of this, especially if they’re still going by the Perrys when the bills come due.

“Sam.”

He turns around and she’s already standing there, the smile that permanently seems to be on her face beaming. It must help her get through the day to be like that; to overlook all the horror she sees. In the short time Sam’s been here, he feels like he could drown in all of it.

“Hi Lori.” He tries his own smile, fails dismally, and looks through the window to catch another glance at Dean.

“How is he?” Lori asks.

Sam shrugs. “He’ll be okay. He always is.”

That’s true, and that will always be true. When he was nine years old, Dean broke his arm for the first time trying to climb a tree. Sam remembers waiting in the emergency room. He was the one terrified, and it was Dean who sat calmly and told him it was all okay. Ever since then Sam knew Dean would make everything alright. This was no different.

“Do you want to grab a coffee?” Sam knows it’s just a ruse to make him spill more about his brother, but the question doesn’t _seem_ loaded. It seems friendly. “There’s a kiosk not many people know about that makes decent coffee - not like the vending machine’s excuse for it.”

Sam’s eyes stay on Dean for a few more seconds, waiting for him to do something - anything - that tells Sam he’s thinking positive, that he’s looking toward a future that has sunshine. Dean doesn’t move one, single inch.

“Sure, why not?”

The kiosk coffee _does_ taste decent, and they offer more variety than just single shot or double shot espresso. He orders a vanilla latte and can just hear Dean’s voice laughing at him, calling him girly, saying that if he wanted a milkshake they’re not paying five bucks for the added caffeine. Sam shakes his head and sits across from Lori.

“So, have the police found what happened?” It’s not small talk, but she somehow makes it sound that way. Sam doesn’t feel as though he’s being attacked or supposed to answer a certain way. He likes that about her.

“Yeah.” He takes a sip of the coffee and kind of gets where Dean’s coming from - it’s very vanilla-y. Nice though. “Apparently a car missed the turn, hit our car, and spun into a tree. Dean was just unlucky it hit his side.”

Heat starts prickling behind Sam’s eyes and he stares hard at the white Styrofoam cup in his hand. He hadn’t thought about it like that before he said it. It was just sheer, dumb luck that Sam isn’t the one lying in a bed sans one leg. Sheer, dumb fucking luck.

Lori pats his hand and Sam blinks hard. “It’s not your fault. Like you said, it was just unlucky. I’ve worked in this hospital for years, and people are remarkably resilient to unfortunate occurrences. Dean is one stubborn man - and they often make the best.”

Sam manages a small sound of laughter. “Yeah, he’s a stubborn bastard.”

“I’m here for you just as much as your brother,” she continues. “Family and friends are just as important in recovery as the patient. Anything you need, I’ll try hard to find it for you.”

“Thanks. I - we - appreciate that.” Dean might not say it to her, but Sam knows he would. “Actually, uh, I did have something to ask.”

Now he feels like she’s just said it because it’s her duty, but that smile is still on her face. “Anything, dear.”

“I don’t…I don’t know if Dean’s told you.” Knowing his brother, it’s more likely than not that he hasn’t. “But, uh, we don’t really have a home base per se. We’ve been…travelling…a lot over the past few years. But, with all of this, I’m guessing that will have to change.”

That doesn’t seem to faze her. Maybe she _has_ seen it all. “We do attempt to rehabilitate everyone back to the same state of life they had before the limb removal was needed. But yes, it would be advisable for the two of you to have somewhere more stable. At least in the early years.

 _Years_. The word echoes through Sam and fills all the spaces in his chest. Not days, not weeks, not even months. _Years_. Dean’s not going to be anywhere close to well in _years_.

“I’m more than happy to help you find accommodation - and to set up a payment plan for everything here. There are many organisations that will help with the finances, and I’ll give you their numbers.”

Sam’s still stuck on the word years, the rest of it only vaguely registering. For Sam’s whole life he and Dean and Dad ran credit card scams as they travelled across the country, hustling pool and darts, picking up the occasional odd-job when Sam’s moral voice spoke through. They never settled, never stayed in one place for too long, never had to worry about long-standing money troubles.

Is this life? Is this what normal people are trapped with?

And to think, once upon a time, Sam wanted normal.

::

“Walking won’t be mastered until you get your permanent prosthesis, but we can start learning now.”

 _We_. Dr. Vex always likes to use we. Like he and Dean are in some kind of team and it’s vital for them both to get Dean up. The guy wants to take all the credit, Dean decides. He’s not about to give it to him.

“I can’t,” Dean says.

“You did it before,” Dr. Vex tells him, “When your brother was here.”

“Well, can’t have Sam thinking he’s got something on me.” No way, Dean’s still the big brother.

“Maybe we should bring Sam into all your sessions.”

“He’s got his own shit to deal with.”

Dean doesn’t actually know where Sam is most of the time. He comes into his room at least three times a day, bearing gifts of food that don’t taste like cardboard, then leaves without a reason. Maybe he’s got a girl somewhere. That’d be good for him, yeah. Dean grips onto the bars in front of him and pulls himself up.

“Knew you could do it,” Dr. Vex says from where he stands at the end of the bars, about two feet away.

“I’m not walking yet.”

“I think you soon will be.”

Most of Dean is ready to fall back into the wheelchair. Ask Dean last month if he thought he could walk with a mechanical leg and his answer would be “hell yeah”, but then reality smacked him in the face and it’s more difficult than anyone would think. Of course Dean never did think about the possibility of a mechanical leg. It never even crossed his mind.

He grips harder onto the bars and takes a step forward. Dr. Vex smiles in approval.

The nights are always the worst. The bed is too small and Dean comes close to falling off every time he rolls over. And then there’s the time he actually did, because he forgot. He forgot that he wasn’t whole and tried to get out of bed like he always did. He hasn’t made that mistake since. He doesn’t let himself forget again.

Sweat is dripping down Dean’s neck as he moves and it hurts. It hurts almost as much as the first day even with the same pain medication. Each step shoots a wave of pain up his leg that settles in his hip and makes it impossible to keep going. But he does. He walks because he has to, not that that he knows why. He doesn’t remember why.

“We’ll have you running yet.”

::

Lori does come through with everything she said she would. She prints out sheets upon sheets of information and hands Sam glossy brochures about financial aid and different loan options all through California. Sam must ring a dozen of them, trying to search for something that fits their situation, but freezes up on the phone.

It's always been Dean who did the lying about their lives. He makes the fake credit cards, calls the phone companies and scams them, creates bank accounts they'll never go back to. Sam's happy enough with hustling pool and darts, even the odd game of card-counting in blackjack, but he can't do it to someone trying to help the lives of others.

They'll find some way out of it. Sam's sure. They've already come this far.

"Did you have a place you'd like to live in mind?" Lori asks him over another coffee. This time he orders a long-black, and it vaguely reminds him of good-quality motel coffee. Which is almost impossible to come by, he must admit.

"No, not really." He hasn't told her about his Stanford years or how he almost got into law school. He doesn't mention the tiny house he and Jess shared and that, as far as he's heard, has since been fixed up and rented out. He hasn't been back. "Cheap hopefully."

She takes a sip of coffee - soy cappuccino, Dean would give her shit for it - and reaches into her bag, pulling out a few sheets of paper. "Maybe somewhere to start. Most of them are close to the hospital. It might be helpful."

 _Years_. She doesn't need to say the word again, Sam hears it.

He takes the papers from her and gives them a glance over. Suburban, single-story, some even have a white-picket fence. He thinks of how Dean would react and decides on two possible outcomes: either Dean takes one look and bursts out laughing, or he takes one look and rips the papers into thousands of tiny shreds. Based on how he's been lately, it's almost certain to be the latter. Sam doesn't want to look at them anymore.

"Your brother appreciates all you do for him," Lori says over her cup. "You'll find a good home."

Sam would trade in that home to have Dean well.

::

Sam does, eventually, look at some of those houses. He finds one in Mountain View. It’s not brick; instead it’s weatherboard with striped blinds on all the front windows. There’s no white-picket-fence;  just a small spiked rise on the curb. It’s two bedrooms, furnished, and Lori says the doors are wide enough for crutches and a wheelchair to pass with no difficulty.

It’s a twenty minute walk from Stanford.

 

“Hey,” Sam calls as he comes through the door. The sun has just began to set.

Dean's sitting on the couch, trying to figure out where the damn talisman Lara Croft's supposed to find is. “Hey,” he responds, offhanded. He finds one part of it. “Yahtzee!”

He can hear Sam come up behind him, footsteps heavy on the wood flooring. “I see you've had a very productive day.”

Maybe there's a point in that, but Dean hasn't played video games in over a decade and he's trying to make up for lost time. He pauses the game and twists enough to look at Sam, but not enough that he can feel the fake leg against his foot.

“And what did you do today, geek boy?”

Sam comes around and drops himself to the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table. “Uh - I got my LSAT results.”

“LSATs?” Dean has some vague recollection of the word, and it sits heavy in his stomach with things like ‘school’ and ‘Stanford’ and ‘leaving’.

“Law School Admission Test,” Sam says slowly. He's picking at his nails. “I was gonna tell you earlier, but it just never came up.”

The heaviness in Dean's stomach twists and he drops the Playstation controller onto his lap. “You've been going to school?”

Sam shakes his head so hard his hair flys. “No, no no. I already did my undergrad degree. Back before…” He trails off, and Dean's thankful. “This doesn't have to mean anything. I just wanted to see how I'd go. To know if I could still do it, you know?”

So this explains the job choice, the locking himself in his room for hours with the light still on. Dean passed him all the time, wandering around the house when he couldn't sleep and thought Sam was. This explains so much, but Dean doesn't want it to.

“And?” he asks anyway, because it's the right thing to do.

“And what?”

“And, can you still do it? Did you pass?” Dean doesn't know what he wants the answer to be - he's trying not to think about that. He keeps the words hollow to himself and puts on a fake tone for Sam’s sake. This is what his brother always wanted; the least Dean can do is go along with it.

It must be working, because Sam looks less freaked. He's smiling. “Scored a 177, man. Three better than the first time around.”

“That's awesome, Sammy.” Dean reaches out and slaps Sam's shoulder. He puts on a smile to match Sam's and thinks it's a little over the top, but Sam doesn't seem to notice. “I’m sure you could get into any law school in the country. Anyone would be lucky to get you to represent them.”

Those words make Sam darken, and his smile slips away. “This doesn't mean I'm going to law school,” he says. “Especially not with everything that's going on here.”

No way. No way. Dean's been watching Sam tip-toe around this issue, trying not to bring up anything about his leg, about the therapy he's somehow learned about. He doesn't mention the empty glass bottles in the trash, he doesn't talk about any of it, but now it’s all laid out here on the table. And Dean's not having any of it.

“You sat the damn test,” Dean says. “Why not follow through?”

“I need to find us a job, Dean. Law school doesn't exactly pay you.”

“I'll work.”

A low blow to see Sam's reaction and he knows it. He watches his brother's mind tick over within seconds, his eyes flickering. In the end he seems to just avoid the comment.

“It just doesn't seem like the right time,” Sam says. Dean hears the sigh in his voice. “Hey, have you beat my high score on Gran Turismo yet? Seeing as you're being productive and all.”

On one hand Dean wants to keep pushing the issue. It seems like the perfect time. Right when Sam's still high on the buzz of passing something he wanted since he was at least eighteen - probably younger, he just kept it from Dean.

On the other, why? End of the day, Sam's a stubborn, independent bastard who's going to make whatever decision he wants. Considering how he managed to sneak around with this, Dean doesn't put it past his brother to go to law school and keep it hush-hush. That's the hand he goes with.

“Not yet - just give it time.”

“Whatever you say.”

::

The movies use sleeping pills. But the movies also use teenage girls with running eyeliner and blonde hair. Dean's got none of that. What he does have is enough booze to take down the entire clientele of the Betty Ford Center, the packet of antidepressants he hasn't touched yet, and a bottle of pain medication that's only ever managed to take the edge off.

Sam's only not going through with the law school thing because he doesn't want to leave Dean alone. Dean sees the pity in his brother's eyes. He sees the way Sam's gaze lingers on his leg, the way Sam goes ahead of him and pushes furniture out of the way. Dean only ever leaves the house for physical therapy, mental therapy, and to buy more whiskey and beer, but he's sure if they were out together Sam would be physically moving people to clear a path for him.

Maybe he can't do anything in life any more. He can't hunt, he can't hook up, he can barely fucking walk. But Sam, Sam's got it all ahead of him.

Let's see how well this substitutes for Hollywood land.

::

Sam may have no real intention of going to law school, but they're so close to Stanford he finds himself wandering past on his way to the library anyway. Forget the fact it's twenty blocks in the opposite direction.

With a score of 177, he can get into any law school in the country. Maybe any in the world. He picked up a few brochures, skimmed a few web pages, and saw Stanford offers the best scholarships. He still isn’t going to enrol, but kids come into the library everyday for info on the school and maybe some will need the financial help.

Sam keeps them all folded tiny in his pocket and is careful to bury them in his bedside drawer every night. Dean doesn't snoop, and it doesn't really matter if he finds the papers, but Sam knows Dean was more bothered by him sitting the LSAT than he let on, and Sam doesn't want to rock the boat any more than strictly necessary. He's not going, and Dean doesn't need to worry about anything.

He attempts to come home earlier now that Dean's therapy sessions have been cut back to twice a week. Sam can see the improvements, even if Dean can't. He can walk up the porch stairs into their house and manoeuvre around the still awkwardly positioned kitchen table. Even the pace has picked up, and Sam feels no need to slow right down. Dean's getting better everyday, and Sam can look past the leg. He just sees Dean.

“Hey!” Sam still calls every time he comes in the door. Last thing he needs is to walk in on Dean watching the grainy porn channel he's managed to find. Only Dean Winchester. “You home?”

There's no response so Sam figures the coast is clear on the nudity front. He wanders into the kitchen, grabbing an apple that's sitting in what has been deemed the fruit bowl. It really should have alternating names between 'the apple bowl' and 'the banana bowl' and 'the grape bowl' because there's only one-of-a-kind in there on any given day.

“Dean,” Sam tries again. Still nothing. Maybe he’s gone asleep.

Sam hopes he’s also eaten, since yesterday all he did was sit on the couch and play game after game of Gran Turismo. Dean might be able to drive a real car, but he halfway sucks with the virtual alternative. _Not that Dean's been driving in months_. Sam quashes that thought with a bite of apple.

Sam continues through the house and knocks on Dean’s door to no response. He knocks louder, and adds in a call of “Dean”. When there's nothing, that's when he starts getting worried. Dean's a hunter, he sleeps with one eye open and both ears moving. There's always a knife under his bed and a hand ready to move. Maybe he went out.

Sam opens the door anyway and Dean's there, stomach down on the bed just like always. Only he doesn't move. Not even when Sam deliberately takes heavy footsteps toward him. Dean's a hunter. This isn't right.

“Hey, Dean,” he says softly. Then a louder, “Dean. Wake up.”

Nothing.

Sam drops to Dean's bed and pushes his brother's shoulder so he can see his face. He can hear Dean's breathing, loud and slow and ragged. _Oh shit_. He hasn't been hunting in so long; he hasn't taken in the room properly, and it's then that he catches sight of the bottles and they all click together. _Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

“Dean!” He yells right into his brother's face and squeezes, hard, into the tight muscle between Dean’s shoulder and neck.

That gets a response. Dean’s open but don’t focus. His pupils are huge, dark and covering over the shades of green. He mouths something that Sam can't catch and then gets to his feet, falling and stumbling his way out of the room.

Sam grabs hold of Dean’s arm and then catches on, wrapping Dean's arm around his shoulder and tripping over each other's feet as they get to the bathroom where Dean throws up and just keeps throwing up, his whole body shaking Sam has to keep hold of him, afraid Dean will just collapse with the way his body keeps convulsing. Keeps retching even after nothing comes up.

“What did you do?” Sam finds himself saying. “What the fuck, Dean? Why?”

Dean doesn’t answer him, but Sam feels his muscles start to loosen and he moves away from the toilet, half-collapsing onto the floor with his head thrown back against the grey tiled wall. Sam watches Dean's throat work over as he gulps in gasps of breath, and his eyes stayed squeezed shut. Sam sees a tear leak out from one of them.

“I have to take you to the hospital,” Sam says, his voice barely above a whisper. His throat feels as raw as Dean's must be.

“No.” Dean's voice is surprisingly clear and even. “I just went a bit overboard with the beers. My liver can take it.”

“I saw the meds, Dean,” Sam says, and he can hardly say it. He can't let himself really believe the words he's saying.

One of Dean's eyes slits open. “My leg was hurting. I’m meant to take them when that happens.”

“Not half the bottle.” And that does it, Sam slumps down to the floor next to his brother and buries his face in his hands. “Not half the fucking bottle, Dean.”

Sam feels warmth on his knee as Dean's hand slides over the joint. Patting down several times. He doesn't speak, and maybe that's a good thing; there's nothing Dean could say that would change all of this. He'll say he wasn't trying to do it - wasn't trying to _kill himself_ \- but Sam knows the truth.

He's not going to school. No way. But he finally believes Lori's words.

_This is going to take years._

* * *

 

  
  
  


  
Sam goes to law school.

Stanford accepts him with a full ride and he's almost sheepish when he shows the forms to Dean. To the background mood styling of a cheating Pete Campbell from Mad Men, Dean slowly reads the words over.

“I'm glad you decided to go,” he says when his eyes glaze over from one too many readings of the word 'accommodation'. Sam's leaving. Again. “You’re staying on campus, I take it?”

“What?” Sam seems genuinely confused. “No way. I can walk.”

“You shouldn't have ditched the rental,” Dean mutters. He gives the papers back to Sam, trying to will his hands not to shake. “Good for you. Knew you had in you.”

“Look.” _Ah_ , he knew Sam was getting to this part. “I know I said I wasn't going, and I won't if--”

Dean holds up a hand in front of Sam's face. “Save it. We're stuck in California, you always wanted to go to school - it’s the perfect opportunity.”

Sam folds the papers over once, twice, three times. Creasing them into perfect little squares. Dean reaches out and takes them from his hands. Sam doesn't react. He doesn't even seem to notice.

“The full ride is awesome. Surprised you're even eligible, being an old man and all.” Dean tries to smile.

Sam also doesn't seem to notice the words. “Have you ever wanted to, you know, pursue higher education?”

Dean doesn't even need to think about it. “No.”

Sam does seem to listen to that. “Never?”

Dean shakes his head. “Nope. Not even a fleeting thought. When I was eight Dad sat me down and told me all about what goes bump in the night and that's all I ever needed. I had to look after you, had to save people, had to keep up with the family business. School never came into that.”

Whenever he wants to, Dean can recall that memory in all its vivid colours. He and Sam had been at Bobby’s two weeks when Dad stumbled back through the door, face still splattered with blood and the blue of his shirt hardly recognisable with all the black and red. Dean had pieced his father back together and that was the night Dean saw the journal for the first time.

It still sits in Dean's bedside drawer.

“Sorry.” Sam's words pull Dean from the memory even though they're hardly even a breath, soft and sorrowful from across the couch.

“For what?” Dean's still trapped on the fringes of that memory. He can picture every chip and scratch in the table that he stared at even after Dad tapped him on the shoulder and said goodnight.

“For everything. For our childhood, for me always blaming you for everything, for leaving, for going to law school, for getting into that crash--”

Dean snaps his eyes up to Sam's. “Shut up, Sam.”

“If I didn't insist on that hunt we never would've--”

“Shut up!” Dean attempts to get to his feet, but the prosthesis catches, freezing at the knee, and it's only Sam's hands shooting out that keep Dean from hurtling into the ground.

Sam grips into Dean’s upper arms, so hard they're probably leaving bruises. Dean doesn't even try to pull away. “I'm sorry.”

“This isn't your fault,” Dean says, lowering himself back to the couch. Sam's hands stay on him. “I was the one driving. I'm the one who lost a fucking leg. It's not on you.”

Sam's hold loosens as Dean speaks. By the time he's done, Sam’s hands have completely fallen away and stall, outstretched, as the silence sits between them. Dean's mind doesn't entirely catch up to Sam reaching out and brushing over his knee, but his body does, and he's sent retreating back further on the couch.

“Sorry. Sorry.” Sam isn't as quiet this time and he looks like he wants to reach out again, but doesn't. His hands curl back toward his body.

A shake of his head is all Dean can muster. What's he supposed to say? _It's okay? I just freak out because you are touching a bunch of metal and screws?_ It's so fucking weird. After all these months, still so fucking weird.

“It'll all be okay.” Sam's voice is back to being barely above a whisper. “We're going to be fine.”

::

Sam on his first day of law school is vaguely similar to Sam on his first day of elementary school. All squirming and nervous, hardly able to sit and eat a bowl of cereal before he jumps up because he thinks he's forgotten something in the ugly-ass briefcase he's bought himself. It's all tied off with a new laptop. Dean doesn't ask where they got the money.

“Sit still, will you?” Dean says after Sam jumps up for the third time in as many minutes. “Eat. We don't need you passing out in the middle of a lecture.”

“Lecture?” Sam smiles. “What other lingo you picking up on?”

“Oh, bite me. 'Lecture' is not some crazy lawyer jargon.” Dean rips into a piece of toast. “You don't have to be there for another hour.”

“I’ve got a twenty minute walk ahead of me,” Sam says. He goes over to the sink and dumps his bowl. When he turns on the tap, water rebounds from the china and spritzes onto his shirt. “Oh, shit--”

Dean tries hard not to laugh. Sam with the shirt he woke up early to iron – fucking iron, Dean didn't even know they _owned_ an iron – and was still picking lint off by the time Dean came into the kitchen, which was probably hours later.

“Gives it character,” Dean notes, still chewing placidly on his toast.

Sam's response is to growl and swipe a dish towel over the shirt. He spreads the murky water rather than getting rid of it. “Fuck.”

Dean rolls his eyes and grabs for one of the crutches, leaning on it as he makes his way to Sam and snatches the cloth from his hand. “It's just milk and water – and you've just got school. That’s a whole lot of complaining for nothing.”

He blots the cloth against Sam's shirt, the colour moving from pastel blue to a slightly translucent where Sam's moved the water around without doing anything to stop it. By the time Dean's done, all that's left is a small splatter under the collar. A triumphant grin that isn't really necessary is directed at Sam, and Dean throws the dish towel into the sink.

“That's how you clean shirts. Now, have a good day at school, dear.”

::

It's quiet without Sam.

Sure, Dean's used to him not being around the house, but he's hardly gone for this long. He's never been gone because he's looking toward an ambitious future. Dean's not jealous. Really. He's just bored. The PS stopped being amusing as a solo-player weeks ago and grainy porn hurts your eyes (that's where the going blind legend comes from, he decides), so he's taken to just walking around the house.

Dr. Vex says it's good for him. To stretch his leg, to go further and further distances when he feels up to it. In other words, just to meander aimlessly with no goal in mind. Because there's nothing that can actually fix this. His leg isn't going to grow back. He won't wake up one day and magically be given everything he wants back.

Sleeping would be a good option to pass the time, but he dreams now. Constantly. He dreams about the crash; he dreams about the hospital; he dreams vivid, creepy dreams where he can see his leg all mangled and torn, blood dripping and skin shredded.

Dean will wake up, head and blood pounding, but the dreams don't leave when he falls asleep, exhausted, later in the night. The next set of dreams are about hunting, or Dad, or Sam. Saving people, saving _them_ , or there's that one dream where Sam dies in the crash.

Dean didn't sleep again that night. Or the night after.

When he does sleep again, all he dreams about are people getting torn apart by demons and ghosts and wendigos and Bloody Marys. All the people he can't save.

So he can't sleep, he doesn't leave the house for further than a walk to the supermarket twice a week to buy more booze, and apparently he can't hunt.

He calls Bobby.

“Bobby.” It’s the only thing Dean can think to say when he hears Bobby’s voice over the phone.

“Dean?” There's so much relief in Bobby’s voice that Dean can't help but feel guilty about not calling in months and letting them know how everything's been. But, then again, Dean wouldn't have anything to tell him. He doesn't know about the crash. Unless… “It's good to hear from you, boy.”

“Good to hear from you, too.” Dean scratches the back of his neck. “Sorry for not calling in so long. Nothing's been happening here, you know? That's, uh, actually why I wanted to call you.”

He cringes back at how his words sound, and if Bobby didn't think there was something up already, he's sure to right about now.

“Yeah?”

Or maybe not. “Uh, yeah. Me and Sam, we’re in California. Found a ghost. We took care of it, but we’re climbing the walls. You got any cases you need someone to look at?”

Why the fuck he didn’t just look in the local paper and pick something at random? He knows there would be cases there, he sees it every time he goes to the supermarket and itches to pick one up.

“You should take advantage of the break,” Bobby says. “Have a little R and R. You boys deserve it.”

Dean grips his fingers harder into the cell phone and reaches out a free hand to steady himself on the bench. Bobby knows. There’s no way in hell he can’t know. _Sam_. Fucking Sam.

“What do you know, Bobby?” Dean asks, trying to decide when Sam called Bobby last. Trying to decide exactly what Sam would tell him. How far he’d go with the story. All he can come up with is _all of it_.

“Now don’t you get angry at Sam. He was right to tell me.” _No he wasn’t_. It wasn’t Sam’s right at all. “He should’ve told me earlier, actually.”

“What could you have done?” The phone is pressed so hard against Dean’s face it's going to leave impressions. Bobby’s voice sounds distorted.

“We’re family!” Bobby says. “I could’ve been there for you boys. I know you always want to deal with everything yourselves, Dean, but that’s not always the right way.”

“It is here.”

Bobby sighs, frustrated. Dean can hear it all in him. Dean is selfish, he knows that. He’s a selfish bastard who hauled Sam away from hunting and shoved him in this place. They’ve got neighbours who still try to bring them home-cooked meals, and there’s Greg who always offers to take Dean fishing or to watch the game or whatever the fuck else middle-age married men do in their free time.

Only Sam’s finally found something to fill in that hole hunting always took up. Dean’s is still empty, raw, and the edges are fraying with every day he knows there are people out there dying because he can’t save them.

“Do you have any cases?” Dean pauses. “Please.”

There’s a longer pause of Bobby’s part and Dean closes his eyes and hopes. _Hopes_. He needs to get back into this, to do something good again. Bobby’s the last ditch effort. Dean needs him to come through.

“Anything.” Dean might say it or it might just be in his mind.

Another sigh. Dean takes it as a good sign. “There’s a couple of things I’m kicking around and haven’t found hunters for yet, but you sure you want do this? There’s nothing wrong with bowing out for a while, taking a break. I won’t think anything less of you.”

Dean jumps on it. “What’s the case?”

More time passes before Bobby comes up with a reply. “Looks like a ghost’s been haunting a back road. Reports of people seeing a man who keeps appearing and disappearing on the Bayshore Freeway. No deaths that I can find - nearly caused a few crashes, though - and no idea who it is. Maybe you could hit the local library, check out some news reports over the years. I traced it back ten years already, but it could be decades since the guy died.”

Dean just about drops the phone in relief of listening to Bobby’s explanation. A case. A fucking _case_. He can do this, he can figure it all out, and Sam doesn’t even need to know. Fuck the leg, fuck the pity, fuck all of it. Dean Winchester is a hunter. Nothing can ever take that away from him.

“I’m on it, Bobby,” Dean says, and he hangs up before any argument can be made.

He can do this.

::

The bus driver gives Dean a strange look when he gets on, eyebrows raised and he’s staring none too subtly as Dean drags his leg up the stairs. _Yeah, fuck you, too_. Dean hasn’t caught a bus since the school years, and put his foot down when high school rolled around and he could just as easily drop out. The impala got him more chicks than a bus ever could.

Not that it matters now. She’s probably gone for scrap, and he doesn’t ask Sam.

Deane sits close to the back, but not close enough to be involved with the teens and not far up enough to put himself in the middle of the woman’s knitting circle. Two women have roll-along suitcases with wool exploding out. They must just sit on here all day, looking out the window at the same view as the bus goes back and forth.

This will also be Dean’s life now.

The library is cold, the A/C hitting him as soon as he’s through the automatic doors. He stays there for an overlong moment, letting the air hit him and hopefully taking away just how much effort it took him to get in here. He’s still got one of the crutches, but he’s trying to buy off a broken leg. Almost impossible because his knee doesn’t properly bend that way, but maybe he can try for old motorbike injury or something; still on the up and up in way of improvement.

“Can I help you?” The woman at the desk leans to see him, a small smile of amusement on her cherry-red lips.

Dean steps out of the path of the A/C and hopes his leg remains hidden. He doesn’t need her pity. “Uh, yeah, actually. I’m looking for any news articles you have on the Bayshore Freeway.”

“Are you a student?” She leans closer to him and Dean leans back, pushing the crutch further down.

“Yeah. I’m studying town planning.” That’s a thing, right? “Just trying to get a head start on the school year.”

Her smile widens to a grin. “I could definitely help you with that. Why don’t you take a seat, and I’ll bring them out to you?”

He waits until she turns her back to him and starts typing at a computer before making his way over to one of the tables, dropping down and stretching out. He keeps his leg hidden

“Was there anything in particular you wanted to know about the freeway?” she calls to him.

He decides ‘murder’ or ‘ghost’ isn’t something you yell across a library, so opts instead for a more stage whispered, “I’m looking at accident rates, trying to see where they could be lowered.”

That makes sense. He’s actually impressed with himself. Sam can go to school, get the white-collar job, and Dean can still do this. He can still be a hunter. And a researcher. And everything he needs to be. Fuck the leg. Fuck Sam assimilating into suburbia and doing the very thing he ran away to look for.

“What a wonderful task,” she says. “I’ve lived here my whole life and there have been so many crashes along that highway.”

“Oh yeah?”

If he wasn’t hiding the leg he’d be over there right now, questioning a first-hand witness. She looks like she’s in her forties and that could help him narrow down another two decades at least.

“Yup.” She clicks something else on the computer mouse and then moves around from behind the desk. Dean kicks the crutch further from her line of view. “I’ll go grab you some articles.”

Dean waits patiently. He’s determined to make this hunt the best he’s ever done.

“These go back the past fifty years.” She dumps a stack of papers on the table, some yellowing around the edges. “All police reports about accidents on the freeway.”

Well that sure makes things easier.Dean smiles up at her, a real smile for once. “Thanks.”

“Anything else you need, just give me a holler.” With that she goes back to the desk.

He likes her. She doesn’t hover. He also likes that she’s already done the bulk of the work for him; he just has to read through, get rid of what doesn’t fit, and make a list of what does.

Who needs Sam?

::

Dean exhausts research within the hour. He’s found who he’s pretty certain is the ghost twenty minutes later after surfing the web. This actually came about a lot faster without Sam trying to take control and question every single potential witness.

This is a lot like the years with just Dean and Dad.

Dean does call Bobby to double-check a Veit Efain, and Bobby says he seems as likely a candidate as any, telling Dean he should consider interviewing his wife and report back. He’s got a hunter lined up. One Dean’s never heard of.

“Yeah,” Dean says. “Will do. Get back to you soon.”

He has no intention whatsoever to do any of that. At least not in the way Bobby intends. Dean isn’t a researcher. He isn’t someone who can just hit the books and be done. He’s a hunter. Despite all of this shit, he’s a hunter. He hunts evil sons of bitches, he kills monsters, he protects the world because of it. Once upon a time he was a _hero_.

And he can be that again.

::

Sam’s already found a shortcut to slice ten minutes off his walk home. Straight through a park, past a neighbourhood with the exact traits Dean abhors about suburban living, and it’s only another two blocks to their house. He passes the landlord on his way and pays with the next month outright.

The money he’s been saving over the years isn’t going to last much longer. If he knew any of this was going to happen, he would have saved way more than the fifty dollars a week. He spent most of that the first year he left home. There was hardly any left by the time of the accident, and they’re living so frugally there’s no more corners to cut.

He’ll have to work. He knows that. He’ll start looking tomorrow.

Dean’s not at in the lounge when opens the door and Sam calls out his obligatory, “Hey! You home?”

For one, heartstopping moment, Sam thinks it’s a repeat of February. Thinking about that day that still makes his blood turn to ice, and he runs first to Dean’s room and then to the bathroom, heart pounding with a mixture of both fear and relief when he doesn’t see Dean slumped over and not breathing in either place.

Sam finds himself back in the kitchen and catches sight paper on the table. A scrap of something, and when he picks it up he realises it’s a Hershey’s chocolate wrapper. Dean’s scrawl is spread across it, fast and messy in a red pen that’s smudged over every word. But Sam can still read it. _Bayshore Freeway_. _Palo Alto_. Sam shoves the wrapper in his pocket and runs.

::

Digging up graves is the worst part of Dean’s job. It’s hard, it’s dirty, and it stinks worse than just about anything. But, tonight, Dean’s got a smile on his face.

His leg didn’t want to cooperate at first; the knee locking up as Dean tried to jump into the shallow grave. Instead he settled to lowering himself in, digging the dirt around and shifting as required. It was slow going, but eventually the shovel hit the pine box and Dean slammed his way through the panels.

_Hell yeah._

Veit Efain died on January 6, 1985 and was buried at St. Ulrich cemetery, which just so  happened to be the closest cemetery to the haunted freeway. Convenience and all that, Dean decided. There was a funeral home nearby, too.

Hauling himself out of the grave proves more difficult than getting in, but Dean’s more determined than he’s been in a long time. Both hands squared against the damp grass, he jumps to swing one leg up and pulls the other after that. It’s far from graceful, but there’s no-one around.

“Lucky sucker,” Dean mutters as he throws the dispenser of salt over the body. It’s easier to buy in suburban supermarkets than bags of rock salt.

He follows with the gasoline that was easier to purchase, even if it took him a twenty minute trek to go two blocks. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except getting through this hunt, burning Veit Efain into the next life, and going home to start doing it all over again. After everything that has happened, this is all Dean wants to do. _Hunt_. It’s more important now than ever.

“You didn’t even get a chance to kill anyone,” he says to the decaying bones. It’s actually a better hunt than most.

He’s still staring at the dusty white when he feels the cold. Not just like wind, more like being thrown straight into an iced-over lake. It takes his breath away, makes his chest contract, and he knows exactly what that means. He reaches for his gun, but the leg doesn’t move the way he wants it to, and it’s too late.

Dean comes face-to-face with who he supposes must be Mr. Efain, considering the way moonlight manages to flicker through his twitching, static body. That’s about all Dean gets to see, because in the next minute the cold against his chest is even worse, and it burns through him. Dean doesn’t know where the fuck his gun is, but it has to be somewhere near the grave. He twists and pulls, and reaches back blindly, but the ghost keeps its hold.

“They killed me,” Efrain hisses, voice like gravel. Each word leads to a harder tug against Dean’s shirt, and Dean’s gripping onto the ground with only his toes. “They killed me.”

What happens next reminds Dean so similarly to the car crash that the images and ideas he sees and thinks blend together until he can’t tell if he’s living now or reliving then. There’s flashes of a car, then flashes of gravestone. He sees the ghost of Efrain coming toward him and Dean tries to move away, but everything feels heavy and his vision starts to blur.

Gun. He needs to get his gun. To blast the sucker away with rock salt.

A good idea in theory, until Efrain comes toward him again.

::

Laura, the librarian, immediately recalled Dean. Sam thanked her about twenty times before running back to the stolen car. He has every intention of returning it the moment he finds out what stupidity possessed Dean to go researching what seems like a ghost, but for now Mr. and Mrs. Stepford can go without their Subaru.

Dust is setting in and Sam’s tempted to put on the fog lights just in case his brother has taken up hitchhiking - there’s only so far he can get walking, and six miles isn’t it - but instinct kicks in, and drawing attention to himself in a car he shouldn’t be driving will be more detrimental than following all the road laws and getting to the cemetery without the police on his ass.

The cemetery stretches further than Sam can see with just his headlights and he slows, eyes peeled. A flicker of moonlight hits something in the distance that catches Sam’s eyes. Something moving. Sam slams the car to a stop on the side of the road and runs to the fence, managing to scale it and keep up the running; no stalling, no stopping. He’s almost certain now that it’s a ghost he sees.

Sam dives for his gun. It’s when he gets back up, pistol aimed to the back of ghost, that he spots Dean behind the spirit, leaning against a gravestone. “Hey!” he calls, and the ghost turns to him, flickers closer. Sam doesn’t take another second to blast the body full of rock salt and search his pockets for a lighter.

None, of course. Years of training to always be prepared for any situation, for any monster, and he forgets a fucking lighter.

“Dean!” he calls.

Dean looks up, but Sam doesn’t think he’s focused even if it is hard to tell with only the moonlight guiding. Then he moves his head, followed by his hands, and Sam sees Dean reaching into his pocket. “Here,” he says, voice weak. “Already salt and gas.”

Sam catches the Zippo lighter, lights it, and throws it into the hole and body below. The flames explode upward and lick against the side of the grave. Sam turns and watches as the ghost is engulfed in more fire, his mouth opening into a silent scream before there’s nothing left.

Sam drops the gun and runs to Dean.

::

“Get off me.” Dean jabs Sam with his shoulder and furthers the distance between them.

“You sure you’re okay?”

“Yes. I’m fine. Grab the shovel.”

Sam does, hoisting it over his shoulder. “Where’d you get it, anyway?”

Dean leans over and picks up the gas cannister. “Gas station.”

“They sell shovels in gas stations?” Great, now Sam’s definitely going to push that he’s got a concussion. And it’s made him crazy.

“They sold them in this one.”

“Right.”

Dean picks up the pace and moves past Sam, the leg actually deciding to cooperate for once. He knows Sam’s deliberately going slow if Dean’’s got a faster walk, but if he pushes it down and away he can just pretend he’s walking perfectly normal. Well, _attempt_ to pretend anyway.

It’s short lived, because Sam’s pounding footsteps come up behind him even before the thought is fully formed in his mind. Dean keeps walking, hoping Sam will go away.

No such luck. “What were you thinking, Dean?”

“I was thinking I had a ghost to get rid of.”

Sam stops in front of him, his arms stretched out and Dean can’t move in a way that will let him go around. He tries anyway, setting off to the right.

“A ghost that nearly owned your ass.” Sam’s yelling. That’s all they need: people to come looking for zombies and find grave robbers. “Why didn’t you call me? No, wait - _why_ were you even looking for hunts in the first place?”

Dean stops dead and stares at Sam. “Because I’m a hunter. That’s what I do - that’s what _we_ do.”

“We don’t need to hunt.” Sam’s eyes are wide along with his arms, and the moonlight illuminates half his face. In that split-second of time, Dean thinks about how much this reminds him of the night before Sam left for Stanford.

“Yes. We. Do.” Dean’s gritting his teeth on every word, glaring at Sam. It was the same argument from years ago: Sam trying to convince Dean they could have more of a life than just hunting. He cursed Dad to hell that night, saying he was a nut-job, a maniac, a drunken asshole. Maybe if Sam hadn’t said all .that, Dean would have believed him. Would have followed him.

“According to who, huh?” Sam’s arms drop, slapping against his sides. “Dad? Dad’s dead, Dean.”

The gas can falls from Dean’s hand and the sound echoes through the cemetery, bouncing off every headstone. “You think I don’t know that?”

“Okay, low blow.” Sam’s voice softens. He takes a step closer to Dean. “You could have at least told me what you were doing. You could have been killed.”

Dean’s hands are balled into fists and he’s just about ready to start swinging. “Every day on the job we could’ve been killed.”

“This is different.”

“How?” It’s Dean’s turn to yell and bring people running. _Good_. Let them. He’d rather prison that here, listening to Sam talk shit on something he knows nothing about. “In case you’ve forgotten, you were the one who told me I was fine. That I was still me. That I could still do fucking everything.”

“Alright, fine.” Sam takes another step closer, and Dean has to look up just to look him in the eye. He doesn’t waver. “No, Dean, you’re not the same. You can’t hunt like you once did. It’s not safe.”

Dean rises, the fists at his side clenching harder until his nails are digging into skin. “What did I just tell you about safet--”

“Dean!” Sam cuts him off with a harsh yell. “You can name every gun in a store, you can hot-wire any car we come into contact with, you know Dad’s journal inside out. So you can’t hunt? So what! You’re still Dean Winchester.”

All Dean can do is shake his head, slowly lean down to pick up the gas cannister, and quietly start walking again. “You know what, Sam?” he calls over his shoulder. “If I can’t hunt, then I’m not Dean Winchester.”

::

When they get back to the house Sam hesitates at the door until Dean finally decides it might be worth turning around and acknowledging him again.

“Go take the stolen car back. You wouldn’t want a criminal record now you’re assimilated into the blue-collar, working world.”

Sam opens his mouth and looks as though he’s about to say something, but shuts it just as quickly and leaves. Dean heads right to the bathroom, trying not to think about anything besides washing off the dirt that’s caked to his clothes, arms, and hair.

The hunt was done. At the end of that day, that’s the only part Dean needs to focus on.

It doesn’t work.

Dean slams his hand against the tiled wall, numbness shooting up to his elbow, and the mirror shaking next to him. He’d like it to shatter, to see exactly what seven years bad luck would look like added to everything that’s going on right now. It would be impossible for things to be worse, and Dean doesn’t feel the need to knock on wood when thinking that.

His life is already so fucked he can’t see anything darker and there’s no traces of light.

Dark water swirls down the shower drain, and Dean leans heavily against the wall. He runs a hand through his hair, bringing chunks of dirt with it. They drop to the tiles and stay there. If he looks out the corner of his eye he can see the stump, still scarred and an ugly red colour from the hot water. So he doesn’t look there. He stays staring at the wall, twisting the hot water tap further until it’s almost scalding against his back, steam rising until he can’t see in front of himself anymore.

He hears the slam of the door when Sam comes back inside, and turns off the water.  
  
::  
  


“How are things at home?”

Dean’s psychiatrist - Renee - sits at her computer typing during the bulk of their sessions. Now she stops and leans back in her chair to stare at him. Dean’s not sure if that’s worse.

“Fine,” he says, and picks at the knee of his jeans. He needs to replace these; they’ve been torn for years.

“How is your physical therapy going?”

“Good.” They’ve cut back to once a month, so he figures that’s a good sign. After a year of doing it, that _better_ be a good sign. “Actually, I have a question.”

Him asking a question seems worthy of writing down. She types something before looking back at him. “Yes?”

“How long do I have to keep seeing you?”

It’s been months now - admittedly with him cancelling every second appointment - and it’s tiring. The same questions of “how are you?” and “do you feel like you’re improving?”. Bullshit like that. Dean knows they’ll have to ditch their current insurance names soon or it’ll come back to bite them in the ass. Therapy isn’t doing anything to help him, and Renee says it’s because he isn’t trying to help himself. Okay, Dean will own up to that. Admittance is the first step to recovery. Even if he has no desire to recover.

“I’d say your regularly scheduled sessions are almost up,” Renee says. “Not that you followed them too well to begin with.”

“You gave me Prozac, it worked fine.” He hasn’t been properly taking them in months, either. Alcohol works just as well and there’s not the same look on Sam’s face when he drinks as there is when he pops a pill. Sam still hasn’t gotten over it.

“If you stop seeing me, you maybe no longer receive a prescription.”

“That’s why I say worked. I’m fine now. Really. Completely better.”

She’s not stupid, he’ll give her that. She types something down before lacing her fingers over her knee. “You can schedule an appointment at any time.”

“Will do.” He goes to get off the seat, only needing the edge of the desk to haul himself up now. There’s still one crutch he hauls around, just in case. It’s hidden most of the time.

“And Dean?”

He turns back to her, itching to just leave.

“Your brother worries about you.”

 _Great_. Like Dean needed to hear that.  
  
::

Sam gets a date just before Thanksgiving that year. Aria. Dean rolls the name around on his tongue a few times before he can actually say, “Hi, Aria,” when Sam brings her home. She’s a university student, Sam says, fourth year and studying visual art. If the pink streaks in her hair don’t say artist, Dean doesn’t know what will. He smiles at her, face tight, and then wants to bite back his comment of “you’re way outta Sammy’s league” when he catches Sam’s face. Yeah, he should have remembered the last time he said that.

“We’re going to check out The Sea Pearl,” Sam says after a few long seconds of awkward silence.

Dean raises his eyebrows at the name.

“Overly pretentious name.” Aria smiles. “But they do some mean seared scallops.”

Dean takes a mouthful of his beer and eyes up Sam. “I’ll take your word for it.”

Sam takes his jacket from the hook and then hesitates, eyes on Dean. Dean's still halfway through a mouthful of beer.

"You'll be okay here?"

Dean rolls his eyes. "I'm not five, Sam. Go have fun. Nice to meet you, Aria."

She smiles again, teeth a line of bright white. "Thanks. You too."

Sam stays standing there even after Aria goes to the door, and Dean has to make shooing motions to get Sam moving. Sam gives another glance over his shoulder before the door is shut, and then it's just Dean and the television to fill in the empty spaces.

He slumps back further on the couch and throws his legs up on the coffee table. It's The Blob, original film of course in all it’s cheesy sci-fi effects glory. He and Sam went to see it on Halloween when a Las Vegas drive-in was screening old B-grades. Mostly it was an excuse for teens to make-out in the back of their parent’s wagons, but Sam was twelve and transfixed to the screen where Steve McQueen battled a giant monster that resembled bubble-gum more than any alien Dean had imagined.

"Does Dad kill things like that?" Sam had asked, taking a huge slurp from his jumbo soda.

"Most of them look more like Chucky dolls."

Sam gave a strange look, but seemed to actually believe Dean and went back to staring at the screen. Dean took a handful of popcorn from between them and did the same. That was one of the most normal Halloweens they'd ever been subject to. On the next Dean was sitting in hospital with a huge gash down his thigh and intubation tube down his throat. They didn't really celebrate after that.

Dean lifted the beer to his mouth again and got one drop from the bottom. He stood, leaving rural Pennsylvania to face down the bubblegum monster, and grabbed another two bottles from the fridge. TV Guide told him there was still Evil Dead to watch after this, and the stolen DVD collection they'd been adding to over the years had Dead Alive, Halloween, and Invasion Of The Body Snatchers that Dean had every intention of watching before the night was out.

So Sam had a life and Dean was watching horror movie rejects. This was what it was always leading up to; Dean became too dependent on Sam, taking advantage of his beck-and-call service. Things would change now.

Sam could keep his life.

Dean doesn't need it.

::

"How's the studying going?"

Sam looks up from his books, his eyes bleary until he rubs them and focuses on Dean.

"Fine," he says as he stifles a yawn. "Exactly like I expected."

"Mmm." Dean raises his eyebrows. "You've planned your life well."

Sam smiles and leans back on his chair, looking up at Dean. His brother might not appreciate it, but this is exactly what Sam wanted. He can deal with the late nights, the lack of sleep, the horrible coffee in the college kitchen. He's looking forward to a life he never thought he'd have, and this time Dean is along for the ride. The guilt is slowly seeping away as Sam realises they might honestly be able to do this.

“Hey, uh, I’m going to stay at Bobby’s for a while.”

The front legs of the chair hit back onto the floor and Sam’s still looking at Dean. “Why? Since when?”

“I called Bobby last night. He said it’s cool and he could use the help.” Sam’s thoughts must show on his face because Dean adds, voice harsh, “I’m not hunting, Sam.”

“Then why?” Sam goes to stand, but Dean reaches out and holds Sam’s shoulder down.

“Because you’ve got exams coming up and I know I’m distracting.”

“You’re not distracting,” Sam says because he’s not; Dean usually wanders around the house, watches TV, and has even taken over most of the cooking and cleaning. He hardly ever annoys Sam anymore, and that’s saying something.

“I’ll spend early thanksgiving with him. Two for one deal.”

“I should go.” Sam shuts his textbook.

“Stay. Study.” Dean leans over and opens the textbook again, managing to find Sam’s exact page. “Hang out with your girl.”

“How are you going to get there?” Sam asks. Maybe appealing to logic and rational will show Dean’s lies up.

No such luck. “Bus line. We’re in California, man, buses will take me anywhere.”

“Like to a cemetery?”

“Yeah.” Dean squeezes Sam’s shoulder too tightly before dragging away, his nails scratching through Sam’s shirt. “Like to a cemetery.”

::

The bus is hot, cramped, and full of screaming kids. He can do with the former and the latter, but that middle option is proving excruciating as the minutes tick by.

He closes his eyes and presses his forehead against the window. It’s becoming dark again as night hits them on their way out of California, and there’s still hours of travelling to go. He called Sam at the last stop, having to grit his teeth so Sam didn’t hear the pain in his voice. He told him that everything was fine, that the bus ride was crap but nothing he couldn’t handle.

“Maybe you could drive the Impala home,” Sam offered, timidly.

Dean sucked in a breath. “I paid two-hundred bucks for these tickets. Might as well get my money’s worth.”

“Call me at the next stop.”

“Study, Sam - or sleep. We stop in Vegas at one.”

“I’ll be up.”

“You got Aria there?” Dean asked. She should be there, teaching his little brother to have a good time.

“Nope. I listened to you. Studying for my exams.”

“Oh, so you listen to me now?” In the distance the bus driver is yelling for everyone to board. Beyond that is the rumble of the bus coming to life. “Okay, I gotta go. I’ll call you in the morning if you’re still not convinced I’m going to Bobby’s, not to hunt.”

“Call me anyway.” Dean could hear the smile in Sam’s voice.

::

Sam met Aria on his third day of college, when he walked into a coffee shop just off-campus and she was serving him, pretty smile on her face and a graphite pencil stuck behind her ear. “What can I get you?” she’d asked, swapping between him and making a coffee for a customer.

He ordered a triple red eye which she didn’t give him a strange look for. He liked her immediately, moreso when she showed him her artwork of black-and-white Californian beaches and flowers. Perfectly detailed right to the last vein in the petal.

What he didn’t expect was for anything to come from it. She asked him on a date two days later, and he found himself accepting after Dean was passed out from another alcohol-fuelled binge after a particularly rough physical therapy session.

He decides to use Dean as his reasoning again - enough studying, time for a break. He calls up Aria and she invites Sam over. He’s there in hardly any time at all.

Before Aria, Sam’s last date had been with Sarah, and he left that with only the slightest of seconds thoughts since. Before that, Jess. He doesn’t want to think about Jess during a time like this.

She’d want him to be happy, just like Dean said, but something in him isn’t ready. Something in him still feels like he was betraying someone, doing something wrong.

“How long have you wanted to be a lawyer?” Aria asks, running a hand through her hair before resting it against Sam’s shoulder. The tips of her fingers run past his neck. And, yeah, he’s completely lost here all over again.

“Um.” He forces himself not to shift away. He’s like some teenager on his first date. “Years, I think, but I didn’t really decide on anything until I started looking at courses and that just seemed the best.”

“Uh-huh.” She scrunches up her nose a little. “I don’t think I could ever take up a career like that. Art all the way for me, less restrictive.”

“My artistic ability borders on three year old with a crayon.”

She laughs, light, and moves closer to him. Sam can see every fleck of gold in her otherwise blue eyes, and her earrings glitter when the light hit them. He knows where this is going, because he’s not the teenager he feels like. Her hand slides from his shoulder to behind his neck.

"Art is more about expressing yourself," she says. "Talent comes from that."

"You say that now, but you haven't seen me draw."

"I'll give you a class some time."

She's pressed up against him now, her knee sliding slowly against his calf. Sam looks down, away from her, and starts mentally cursing himself about how much he sucks at this. Sarah only worked because she was part of a case, and he could mold himself into thinking that’s what  it was. Jess was…just as awkward at the start, Brady pushing him to ask her on a date until Sam finally relented and blurted out something that resembled "wanna grab a coffee?". He doesn't even want to think about the few meager, go-nowhere dates he got in high school. They all ended in disaster.

"How long have you lived in California?" Aria has one finger curling in the hair at the nape of Sam’s neck. If she was an even an inch closer their lips would be touching. Sam doesn't know why he doesn't press forward.

"About a year," he says, voice oddly strangled. He clears his throat and mentally tells himself to get a grip. "We - my brother and me - moved here after an accident."

"Oh?" The finger in the hair stops, but her hands stays splayed across his neck, warm.

He's said too much, especially since most of it isn't for him to say. Dean came off the worst for wear, and the way he was hiding his leg when Aria came by the first time tells Sam he doesn't want anyone to know if he can help it. He keeps talking anyway.

"Yeah, a car crash. My brother…he got pretty hurt. He's okay now, though." No point referencing the amputation, no point spilling everything to the girl he's dating. "But I started school and we just decided to hang around."

"Well," Aria says, and she moves even closer. Half an inch distance now. "I, for one, am glad you did."

When Sam doesn't make the move Aria leans forward and their lips brush together. Sam’s brain finally starts getting the message, and his hands move to spread across her back, pulling her closer. He can feel her smile against the kiss, but he’s not sure what he’s feeling. He likes her, sure; she’s great. But something in his mind is still holding him back, still telling him to stop, and he can’t make it shut up no matter how hard he tries.

When his cell rings he all-but jumps away from her, lips buzzing, and the caller ID says Dean. “Sorry--” he says to Aria, but she shakes her head.

“Take it,” she says.

“Hey, Dean.” He clears his throat and runs a thumb over his mouth. Patches of tacky lipstick stick to the skin.

“Heya Sammy. I got to Bobby’s. Everything’s good, so you can stop worrying. No hunts, I promise.”

Sam’s too foggy to form proper thoughts. “Uh, yeah, okay. I believe you. Good trip?”

“Two days in a bus, Sammy. It was awesome.” Dean’s voice drips with sarcasm. “It’s late. I’m tired and sure you are too, college boy. Get some sleep.”

“Uh, yeah, will do.” Sam clenches the phone tighter and tries to make his voice sound normal. Dean will know something’s up. But then Sam’s left wondering why that matters. It’s not like Dean hasn’t brought girls back to their motel room, or whatever house Dad rented when they were kids. Sam releases the harsh grasp and tells himself to breathe. “Goodnight. See you in a few days.”

“You’ve got Aria there, haven’t you?” Dean’s voice is strangely flat. Sam blinks.

“Yeah, she’s here…” He looks at Aria and attempts to convey an apology. “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

There’s a rustle in the background of the phone but Sam can’t place it. “No, don’t worry about it. I’ll be back on Thursday. Have a good night.”

Sam’s left with the dial tone. It takes him a moment to collect his thoughts and he drops the phone back onto the end table, rubbing over his eyes. Well that was…weird, but he doesn’t have much time to dwell on it before Aria’s hands are back on him, tracing down his arm and swirling over the inner part of his wrist.

“Where’s your brother?” she asks.

“Staying with our…uncle for a while. He’s a mechanic.” Sam wants to catch her eye, but something keeps his gaze firmly rooted downwards. Thoughts of Dean lying to him and hunting are finally starting to reach his mind, and he’s tempted to call back and ask to speak to Bobby. Sam knows it was Bobby who gave Dean the hunt in the first place.

“Is Dean a mechanic?” Aria says. Sam looks up and she’s shifted back to the same place as before the phone call, minus the connection of lips.

“Not exactly,” Sam says. “But he knows his way around cars.”

“And you?” Her voice stays low, but it’s nowhere near as flat as Dean’s was. He must be hunting, that’s the only logical explanation.

“No. Uh, look--” He gently pulls his arm away from her touch and lengthens the distance between them. “Sorry. I have to call him back…”

Her eyebrows knit together momentarily, but the smile soon comes back to her face and she gives Sam’s wrist a squeeze. “That’s fine. I take it you’ll call me?”

Sam’s nodding a little too much. “Yeah, yeah definitely. I’ll, uh, I’ll see you out.”

He walks Aria to the door and pushes away the possibility of Dean’s hunting to kiss her goodbye. She lingers and he knows there’s more she’s wanting, more she’s waiting for, but Sam’s stupid brother has to take precedence and he pulls away.

“I’ll call you tomorrow."

“Goodnight, Sam.”

::

Dean was asleep when Sam called, his ringtone breaking through the silence. He throws back the covers and goes for it before remembering it isn’t possible. Face meet floor. It hurt like a bitch, too.

But he’s learning. Slowly. After Dr. Vex made him sit on the floor - which Dean was not happy to oblige for the first dozen times it was demanded of him - and then get up on a seat. It was one of the hardest things he’d been forced to do in months, but Dean did it. Sweat was dripping down his face, chest was heaving, and hurling any insult that came to mind at Dr. Vex, but he did it.

Just like he now manages to haul himself back onto the bed and put on the prosthesis in the dark. All of it by touch and feel, hands hitting metal, and then skin, and then the soft padding of the sock. He’d rather try and walk with this than go back to two crutches, or the dreaded wheelchair that sits, folded up, in the garage back in California.

“What the fuck Sam?” he groans into the receiver. “It’s like…three in the morning.”

“Four,” Sam replies. “Are you hunting, Dean?”

“What?” The yell he attempts comes out husky, clogged with sleep. “What did I tell you yesterday?”

“That you weren’t.” _Damn straight_. “But…sorry. I should trust you. Sorry for waking you.”

“Jeez, Sammy.” Dean leans against the wall, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “All that studying is messing with your brain. I’m not hunting, alright? Get that through your thick skull. You wanna talk to Bobby? Make him convince you? I’ll put him on, but you’ll be talking to one pissed off old man at four in the morning.”

"Yeah, you're right."

"Of course I am."

He can hear the amusement in Sam's voice. "I do trust you, man. I won't annoy you again. But call me."

"Will do. Now you sleep." Dean pauses. "Or go hook up with your girl again. Did you have a good night?"

"She's gone home," Sam says.

"Such a gentleman, Sammy. You've been on three dates, when--"

"I'm sorry for calling," Sam cuts him off. "Good night. Enjoy your weekend. Don't hunt."

"I won't."

"I know."

::

Dean wakes up again at a more reasonable hour, sunlight filtering through the thinning curtains. He's not used to that, not since he last stayed at a motel. His room back in California has thick drapes that would let him sleep until two in the afternoon under the pretense it was two in the morning. It's more instinct than anything that still gets him up at a reasonable hour.

Bobby is already awake when Dean tugs on jeans and a shirt and makes his way down the stairs. He left the crutches back in the room, but can make his way down with slow movements, one hand gripping the banister and the other sliding down the wall. The smell of bacon comes from the kitchen, he smiles at the thought of Bobby caring that much. Of course Boddy would always deny it.

"Morning Bobby," Dean calls as he rounds the corner into the room and plonks himself down on the table. There's already a plate of bacon in the middle and he grabs a piece, downing it in one bite. "What's on the agenda for today?"

Bobby with his kiss-the-chef' apron stands over the stove that spits and hisses with the eggs he's cooking. “I’ve gGot some research for an old buddy of mine, if you feel like a morning of reading.”

Dean grabs for another piece of bacon, and then decides there’s probably a reason for plate in front of him. He loads it up with more pieces. “You got any coffee?” Bobby puts the pot on the table. “And how about something more along the lines of menial labour?”

“I’ve got some cars you can look at.” Bobby sits across from Dean, pushing the plate of eggs closer to him.

Dean takes two, and his hand is shaking. He tears it back to his lap. “I guess I could do that.”

“The impala’s out back. It could use a bit of TLC.”

Dean drops the knife and the clatter rings through the room, bouncing off dozens of dusty books. “What did you say?”

Bobby pulls the cap lower over his head, and flexes his fingers before answering. “I thought Sam would have told you.”

“Well, he didn’t.” Dean’s whole appetite is gone, and the taste of grease sits tacky in his mouth and throat.

“What do you think had happened? She’d gone to scrap?”

“Yeah.” Dean nods slowly. “That’s exactly what I thought.”

Months of imagining his car crushed up somewhere in a used car yard, finally becoming a cube of metal and leather. He couldn’t tell Sam the thoughts bothered him - his brother wouldn’t get why a car mattered so much - but learning it was here all along? Dean grips his coffee mug.

“Sam brought her here the last time, and don’t think he’ll give up that easily.”

“He had no right,” Dean murmurs. “He should have told me…”

“He probably thought you’d react like this.”

Dean looks up at Bobby who’s sipping on a mug of coffee now, looking at Dean from over the rim. “It’s my damn car.”

“All the more reason to work on it while you’re here.”

He’s had enough of this. Dean pushes up from the table.

“Dean.” He doesn’t look at Bobby, but he stalls. “Boy, you gotta get back on that horse, even if it’s for a different rodeo.”

“What the hell does that even mean?” Dean doesn’t wait for an answer. He goes back upstairs.

* * *

 

  
  
“Do you want to go check out the new Vietnamese restaurant?”

The couch dips where Dean sits down and picks up one of the controllers, gliding through the menu of Resident Evil, the newest game to add to their slow growing collection. Dean had recently taken up using eBay, old habits dying hard when the package came addressed to one Dean Solo. The sound of zombies fills the room.

“Why?”

“Celebrate.” Dean gives him a sideways glance, half his attention obviously staying on the screen. “First year of school under your belt, we should do something more than play video games.”

“I’m fine with video games.” Sam yawns and stretches his arms up high. For the last few weeks before and after exams he hadn’t been able to sleep, too stressed about anything and everything. Now that it’s all over, his body just wants to sleep and sleep.

“Well if you don’t want to do anything with me, maybe you should ask Aria out. Go take her to a poetry reading or another douchebag restaurant.”

Sam smiles despite himself. “You’ve never even been there, how can you say it’s a ‘douchebag restaurant’?”

“Names tell us a lot. First impressions and all that.” Dean pauses the game and slides the controller onto the coffee table. “Go call her.”

“We went out not that long ago.”

Truth be told, Sam hadn’t seen a lot of Aria over the last few months. Part of him wants to spend more time with her, but when he comes home from school and sees Dean just sitting in the living room, solemn, and Sam knows he can’t leave his brother alone. Not yet.

It _has_ taken years.

“Things are getting serious between you two, then?” Dean kicks his legs up on the coffee table, toe colliding with the controller and sending it to the floor. Neither of them move for it.

“No, not really. I have to cook for your sorry ass most days - don’t have all that much spare time.” Dean looks like he’s about to say something, but Sam stands and shoves his brother’s thigh. “Come on,” Sam says. “I’m starved.”

::

The restaurant smells like a mixture of spice and sea, all mingling together with the sounds of soft music and faintly clanging pots and pans.

Sam holds the door open for Dean and ignores the withering glare he gets in response, but he does notice the way Dean’s gaze brushes over everyone and how he stands up a little straighter, walks a littler faster, and all but ignores the crutch grasped in his right hand.

When they’re seated and Dean’s face is buried in a menu, Sam does take the chance to say, “Nobody’s looking.”

Dean has that glare on his face. “What are you talking about?”

“Nobody cares about the leg,” Sam says. “Don’t be paranoid.”

“I’m not--!”

Now they’re looking. Dean goes back to the menu and completely ignores Sam. When their orders are taken and the menu removed from the front of Dean’s face he takes instead to the red and white napkins. Sam sighs and leans back in his chair. So much for celebrating. Not that he’d rather be anywhere else.

“They don’t notice,” he says, quieter this time, less condescending. “Nobody notices anymore.”

“You do.”

Sam’s mind comes to a halt at those words, and he’s stopped from coming up with a response because their food arrives. The waiter asks if they want anything else, and Dean answers a “no” for both of them, his eyes never leaving Sam’s.

When the guy leaves, Sam manages to say, in a harsh whisper, “I’ve hardly noticed from the start, Dean. And if I did, I never cared.”

“Uh-huh.” Dean stabs his fork into a piece of beef. “I could hunt before this.”

Sam breathes out through his nose, taking everything in him to not just roll his eyes and be done with it. “We’ve been over that.”

“Yeah. We have.” Dean puts the food into his mouth and chews slowly, eyes back to wandering around the restaurant.

Sam wants to grab Dean and shake him, force him to stop the passive-aggressive crap he’s been clinging onto ever since this happened, ever since they moved to California and Dean drowned himself in alcohol and crappy daytime TV. “Alright, fine, I’ll bite.”

Dean looks back at him, the same placid look on his face. Sam still wants to shake it away.

“If you’re so gung-ho on hunting, why don’t you just go and hunt?” The words hurt as much coming out as they did rolling around his mind. His desire to eat is gone, and he pushes the chopsticks around his plate.

“I tried to, remember?” Dean takes a sip of water. Sam’s surprised he didn’t order something harder. “You put an end to that.”

 _Stop pushing_. “How many times have you listened to me before that? I’m the little brother. You tell me what to do, not the other way around. That’s what you always said, anyway.”

Dean drops his fork and wipes a napkin over his mouth, eyes still looking next to Sam, past Sam, never on him. He sighs. “I don’t know, okay? I don’t fucking know.” Then Dean finally looks at him, a taut smile on his face that could never be read as anything but fake. “We’re meant to be celebrating. Top of your class, Sammy. All that high school virginity is finally paying off.”

He doesn’t bother to argue back. Top of his class, yeah, woo. He should be celebrating, but the closest he came is drinks with a few of the people in his class. This - this isn’t celebrating. This is Dean trying to hide his leg, thinking he’s being inconspicuous and failing dismally. This is Sam trying to ignore the pit that grows in his stomach every day.

This is them never escaping the years.

::

“Have you ever considered a job at the garage?” Sam asks Dean a couple of months later. It’s over a lunch of whatever-you-can-find sandwiches, which is becoming something of a tradition on Wednesdays, the day before Sam always goes and gets groceries. Sam wrinkles his nose at Dean’s grilled cheese, potato chip, and pickles concoction.

For a moment Dean’s eyes widen and he swallows hard, but then he’s back to his own shell-self, cutting off all emotions Sam could hope to read. “Is this your not-so-subtle attempt to make me start paying my way?”

“We’re fine with bills,” Sam says, even though that’s so far from the truth. Sam needs to find a job, and soon. That’s not even including the medical bills and insurance he knows will be coming back to bite them soon enough. He needs to talk to Lori again, but with school and everything else, he just hasn’t had the time. “It’s just, you seem to want something to do, and there’s a garage close by.

“If you want me out of the house, you just have to say.”

“I don’t want that, Dean!” He had no intention to yell, or tip his seat over as he stood, but it comes out before he can stop it. He’s tired of all of this; Dean still looking like nothing has changed. Sam knows he isn’t going to the psychiatrist anymore, and it’s not because he’s better. Not by a long shot. Sam says, not yelling this time, “Do what you want to do, it was just a suggestion.”

Dean finishes the final bite of his sandwich, and brushes the crumbs from his hands and the table. Sam watches them drop to the floor and doesn’t complain about the mess.

“You know what I want?” Dean doesn’t wait for a response before getting up and leaving the room. “I want to go watch _Botineras_.”

Dean’s living a life in Spanish telenovelas.

::

Dean decides math is not what got Sam into Stanford.

Bellmore is a bigger town than Dean expected, but Sam’s use of ‘close by’ suggested that maybe, maybe, Dean could walk there without difficulty. Thirty minutes after leaving the house he can see the battered Bellmore Auto-Shop sign and stops in his tracks. Even from a hundred feet away he can hear the familiar sounds of tools hitting cement and car engines turning over.

He wants to just sit here. To sit in the middle of the street and listen to it all for the rest of the day until it’s part of him. Before Dean knew about all the monsters and ghouls and demons, he wanted to be a mechanic. He never lied to Sam; school wasn’t for him - the family business was - and Dad had been a mechanic, once upon a time; he taught Dean everything he knows about cars.

Of course he doesn’t. He pussies out, turns around, and makes the walk home.

He doesn’t stop at the liquor store this time.

::

Sam doesn’t get a chance to speak to Lori until the insurance company is sending them final notices. When he sees the first one with its angry red stamp there’s a fleeting thought of up and packing, adopting new names, and starting off life somewhere on the East coast, but then logic catches up and he knows they can’t do that.

For the second time in Sam’s life, California has become home.

Finding a job can’t be all that hard, he decides. He had one last time he was her -  admittedly as an undergraduate and given to him by a friend’s father. But still an honest job. An honest, reliable job that gave him clean, legal money. He spent the first few months feeling guilty, how’s that for fucked up morals?

Two weeks later, he has two jobs. One at the college library, the other at the reception desk of the nearby gym.

He doesn’t tell Dean about either.  
  
::

For the last two Fourth of July’s, Dean had sat in his room with a pillow over his ears. This year he throws on jeans, finds a shirt that hasn’t been sitting on the floor for the past week, and tells Sam they’re going to rock and roll. Sam looks up from his books, dark bags under his eyes.

Sam needs to sleep, but Dean’s sick of being trapped in here.  “Live music, cheap restaurants. Let’s go.”

“It’s your turn to cook.” Sam stifles a yawn. He closes the textbook.

“I believe the agreement was that I have to _get_ us dinner. Cooking not required when the town provides.” Dean taps Sam on the back. “Come on, let’s go.”

Sam groans but slides out of his seat, almost tripping over as he struggles to stand.

"And I thought I was the invalid," Dean mutters.

Sam's eyes widen at the words. "You're not--"

"Save it." Dean holds up a hand. They're not having an argument. "It was just a joke. Now up and at 'em, kiddo. I'm starved."

Sam looks at him warily for another moment, but something positive must show on Dean's face because Sam gives a shrug and follows Dean when he turns for the door. The crutches have been forgotten now, collecting dust in the garage along with the long-abandoned wheelchair.

"You know, we've been living here almost three years and never really met our neighbours," Sam says as they walk along the street. The sun is setting but it still has to be over 90 degrees out. Dean wipes a hand over his brow.

"I thought that was more your thing," Dean replies, kicking at a stray soda can. "I'm antisocial, remember?"

Sam just shakes his head and smiles up at the sky. "Yeah, I remember."

The closer they get downtown the louder the cars and music become. Dean doesn't really recognise the song, but the tune reminds him of mainstream radio from his bus trip. The streets are thickening with people and Dean swallows into his suddenly dry throat. Sam must notice as he reaches over and grabs Dean’s wrist.

"Careful, step," Sam says, and Dean goes to push him off but just thinks what the hell and lets Sam guide him over it. On an embarrassment scale, little brother holding your arm is a lot lower down than face planting in the middle of a crowded street. Dean's not that proud.

"Where’s the Springsteen?," Dean mutters to Sam.

Sam gives him a strange look. "Since when do you like Springsteen? I heard you call him obnoxious last July 4th.”

"It beats whatever crap this is."

"It's _Poker Face_ ," Sam informs him. Guy knows fucking everything.

"What's the square root of three-hundred-and-twenty-nine?" Dean tests, rolling his eyes.

"Eighty."

Dean does a double take and stares at Sam. "Really?"

"Do you know the answer?"

 _Fucking jerk_. Dean turns away from his brother and makes his way further into the hum of things. Couples are walking hand in hand past shops, women pointing things out because it's Christmas in July and all that. Kids are running past, around, wherever the hell there's space and even where there's not, weaving in and out of the legs of others and squealing so high-pitched that Dean winces.

Is this really the life Sam wanted?

"Hey." Sam's been following him. Typical. "You still hungry?"

"That was a ruse," Dean says. "I'll let you mingle first, play Mr. Rogers or John Doe. Which would you prefer?"

"John Doe's usually the name for an unidentified dead guy." Sam runs a hand through his hair and looks out into the people.

"Oh." Dean tries to ignore how that clenches something in his chest. "Mr. Rogers it is then. Kids fucking everywhere."

"We chose a family friendly town."

"You chose the town. I was lying in a hospital bed, learning to walk again." Dean should really bite back the words, but he keeps going. Petty, petty things that he uses to try and convince himself nothing about their life right now is his fault. Of course it is. He's fucked everything to hell.

Sam looks at him for a long time before saying anything. He licks over his bottom lip. "I am sorry."

"Forget it." Dean sighs, loud and overdrawn. "Just forget it."

"We could always move," Sam continues. He sounds desperate, and Dean regrets every word he just said. "Go wherever you want."

"I'm fine here." Sam looks at him, so he adds, "Really, Sammy. And hey, finally convinced our landlord to give me a quality porn channel. I ain't giving that up anytime soon."

"You're unbelievable." At least Sam's smiling now, even if it is joined with a crease in his brow that manages to make Dean feel slightly bad about getting the porn. Maybe he should have asked Sam for his thoughts on it first.

"I know."

They stand there in silence for a little longer, Dean attempting to understand just what it is about this music that's making people pull up deck chairs and crowd around the make-shift stage. He's drawing a blank when a woman approaches him and Sam.

"Sam and Dean Perry, right?" the woman asks, extending a hand.

Dean exchanges a glance with Sam before shaking the woman's hand. He's got no idea who she is, and it doesn't seem as though Sam does either.

"Marilyn," she informs them. "I live two houses down. And that is my husband - Joe!" She waves at a man standing toward the stage. He lifts a hand, then turns back.

Marilyn and Joe. Okay. Yeah, no. It's not ringing any bells in Dean's mind except for a fleeting image of Marilyn Monroe dancing in a cake. Not a great image when this Marilyn would be old enough to be his grandmother. Not a good image at all.

Sam shakes hands with her before Marilyn continues, her voice going a mile a minute. “How long have you been living here?”

“A couple of years,” Sam says.

“I haven’t had a chance to talk with you in all this time!” She seems to have a tone of voice set permanently on exclamations, and Dean takes a step back, closer to Sam. He can deal with her.

“Well, I’m in school and Dean’s been busy with work.” Good ol’ Sammy. He might be living the life of a straight-edge college student, but he can still lie through his teeth. “We haven’t had much of a chance to meet everyone.”

She grasps his hand and Dean has to stifle a mixture of shock and laughter at Sam’s reaction, his eyes flying to Dean’s in a silent _what the hell?_ “It’s so wonderful you could come here tonight. We don’t seem to have a lot of young couples around anymore.”

“Oh, we--” Sam starts, but Dean cuts him off. Might as well play it up.

“Yup, we tend to be the exception.”

Sam’s glaring at him so hard Dean’s sure there has to be a hole in his head, but he’s bored. He’s been bored for weeks, months, years even. This is harmless fun. He hasn’t had a different identity in so long, and being Dean Perry is wearing thin. He doesn’t even like Aerosmith all that much.

“Did you marry here recently with the passing of the bill?” she asks, voice still too high and loud. Dean remembers that bill passing, it took up the six o’clock news.

“Canada,” Dean says with a nod of his head. He flickers a quick smirk in Sam’s direction. “Sammy here wanted a big, white wedding, and I just couldn’t say no.”

She looks at Sam and Dean’s about to kick him into a response when Sam gets with the program and plays along. “Yeah,” he says. “It snowed and everything.” _Perfect_.

“I remember my wedding day.” Marilyn sighs and twirls the ruby ring on her finger. “Twenty years ago next month. Joe was my second husband, you see, and it was much harder for a mature bride like me to be wed. But we did it anyway, in the blazing heat…”

She might keep talking, Dean’s not too sure. It’s not particularly hard for her to be drowned out amidst the sounds of music, children screaming, and now it’s been joined with the heavy revving of car engines. They’re louder than he thinks they should be; soon drowning out the music, the people, everything around him.

Tires screech and Dean can feel himself tense. His nails dig into his palms until he can feel wetness and realises it must be blood. Sam’s hand is on his shoulder and Dean flinches as everything comes back into focus and the sound of cars fades into the background. Loud, but not overbearing.

“Are you okay, dear?”

It takes Dean a minute to focus and recognise the woman speaking to him is Marilyn. “Yeah, uh, yeah, I’m fine.”

She doesn’t look convinced and reaches out a hand, but Dean pulls back before he can really think. She drops her hand and looks at him with so much pity he wants to turn and run. His body is thrumming with the type of adrenaline he hasn’t felt since hunting, and even then it’s not the positive adrenaline he’s used to. It doesn’t make him want to kill monsters, to save the world. It makes him want to curl up in defeat. It makes him feel sick.

“Are you alright?” Sam’s voice is much quieter, right by his ear. Dean wants to pull away, but he doesn’t.

Dean nods curtly. “I’m fine.”

The look Sam gives him makes the adrenaline flow harder. When Sam squeezes harder Dean gives into instinct and pulls away, turning from both Sam and Marilyn. He needs to get out of here.

“Is he--” Dean hears Marilyn but keeps walking. Fuck thinking they can make something out of suburban living, fuck thinking they can ever be normal. They can’t even play brothers - Dean has to make them a married couple.

“He’s okay,” Sam says, because apparently Sam is speaking for him now. Dean keeps going, away from the music, away from the cars, away from the mingling and white-picket fence lifestyle. How could he think Winchesters could ever do this?

Dean rounds a corner and all the sounds become muffled. He lets himself breathe. Clear, warm air fills his lungs and evaporates everything from his mind. He takes another breath, blinks back the stinging in his eyes, and lets his pace slow ever so slightly. But he’s not going back.

“Hey.”

Before he can register that it’s Sam, a hand is against Dean’s neck and he reacts on impulse, swinging around and landing a punch on his brother’s jaw. Sam’s eyes widen as he stumbles backward, catching himself and cupping where the skin is already reddening.

Part of Dean wants to say sorry - sorry for everything - and tell Sam he can’t do this. He can’t keep going like this. But the overwhelming part of him, the part that’s kept him safe and protected his entire life, tells him to shut his mouth and play the big brother role like Dad taught. That part wins out yet again.

“Don’t come up behind me like that!” Dean yells.

It’s Sam who ends up apologising, with a litany of “sorry, sorry, sorry” as he rubs at his jaw and Dean still feels guilt despite thinking Sam definitely shouldn’t just walk up beside someone and grab them. He’s a hunter for fuck’s sake; he’d react the same.

“You wanna go home?” Sam asks once he’s done with the worthless apologies.

Dean doesn’t respond; he just starts walking again.

::

“Do you want to talk about it?” Sam hesitates in the doorway. He’s been standing there too long already for Dean not to be aware of it, but his brother just stays staring at the blank television screen and raising a beer bottle to his lips. The only light in the entire room comes from one soft lamp in the corner that Sam turned on half an hour ago. Dean hasn’t moved.

“No.”

“Dean--”

“Don’t.”

Sam ventures into the living room and finds the remote. He switches on the TV and the local news springs to life, showing a crash scene two towns over. The TV goes off again.

“It’s okay, you know?” Sam sits on the arm of the couch, looking sideways at Dean. “Totally normal.”

“What is?” Dean’s staying nonchalant, and the beer doesn’t leave his lips for more than a second at a time.

“The memories.”

The bottle pauses mid-air before Dean gives a small shrug and downs the remainder of the bottle in one go. There’re another two sitting on the end table next to Sam and Dean leans over to take one, ignoring Sam’s presence. He flips the cap open with his ring and throws it on the coffee table to join the four already there.

“Did you speak to your therapist about it?”

Dean snorts. “Yeah. We had a real heart-to-heart, I cried on her shoulder and everything.”

Sam swallows over the mixture of anger and sympathy he feels rising in his throat. “When do you plan to get serious?”

“When do you plan to get less girly?”

Sam moves off the arm of the couch and sits on the cushion. From this angle he can see the metal of Dean’s leg.

“I thought you said you didn’t look.”

Dean’s voice doesn’t sound angry but Sam still flushes, turning to stare at the carpet. Even in the dimming light he can see the assortment of stains they’ve given to the off-white over the years. It was stupid, but seeing that served to remind Sam that this was theirs. They had a place of their own. A home with stains on the carpet and Dean’s beer bottle caps on the coffee table. _Home_.

“It’s okay,” Dean says finally, his soft voice breaking into Sam’s thoughts. “I know it’s obvious.”

Sam shakes his head, keeps shaking it and can’t find a way to stop. “No, it’s really not.”

“It’s a fucking metal leg, Sam.” When Sam looks up Dean’s staring at him, the neck of the bottle clenched in his hand. “You can stare at it.”

“No,” Sam says. “I wouldn’t-- I don’t--”

Dean lets out a shot of laughter, harsh and cold. “Now there’s Marilyn who probably feels sorry for you. You got a cripple for a husband. Could have done so much better.”

And that’s another thing. Sam still can’t wrap his head around why Dean felt the need to play up the couple act. Not when they’re living in a town Sam doesn’t see them leaving for a good while.

“You should divorce me,” Dean mutters darkly. “Gain the respect of the locals.”

The rise in Sam’s throat is pure sympathy now, and he can’t push it down no matter how many times he swallows. “I’d have to be a pretty lousy guy to divorce the person I love because of an accident that was in no way his fault.”

“You love me, Sammy?” Dean’s voice is quiet, teasing, but there’s still a dark undertone that makes Sam’s skin crawl.

“You’re my brother,” Sam says. _Of course I do_.

Dean drains his fifth beer and it’s not even pitch-black out. “That I am.”

::

Every day when Sam goes to school, Dean walks a little further.

It’s always in the same direction, the same place in mind. On the first day he goes close enough that trees only block half of the Bellmore Auto-Shop sign, on the next it’s only a large branch. By the end of the week he’s close enough to see the mechanics walking in and out, but he never goes close enough to hear them, never goes close enough to put his hands on a car.

He sees Dr. Vex on the Monday and manages three stairs among the hisses of “fuck” and “shit” and “cocksucking doctor”. He knows the leg will never work like the real thing and is slowly starting to accept that; at least according to Dr. Vex. He seems to think he can read Dean’s mind and Dean doesn’t argue. By the end of every session Dean’s too tired to argue anything.

Dinner is always on the stove before Sam walks through the door, and most of the time it’s a smile on Sam’s face and not a grimace when he smells the flavours mingling through the small house.

“Spaghetti Bolognese?” he guesses on Tuesday. There’s only so many meals Dean can make, and Sam has found them all with one whiff.

“Butterfly,” Dean amends. He’s aware of his brother’s eyes on him as he drops herbs into the stovetop pot.

“Ah, branching out.” Sam reaches over and grabs a handful of carrot pieces. He starts chomping down.

“Bite me,” Dean says. “Quit eating those, you’ll ruin your appetite.”

“Yesterday you complained I didn’t leave enough for you.”

“You ate my burger!” For the first time in his life, Dean had made actual burgers, with homemade beef patties and fresh salad. It resembled the burgers on the fast food adverts far better than anything he’d bought in those places over the entire 50 states.

“It was a compliment.” Sam stands up straight and rounds the counter until he’s in the centre of their tiny kitchen. There’s really not enough room for two grown men in here. “On your excellent cooking.”

“If you want more ‘excellent cooking’,” Dean says, trying to maneuver around Sam and reach the fridge. “Then you’d better get out of my way.”

Sam lifts his hands in mock surrender and goes back to his old position, back to stretching across the counter and watching Dean work. Dean isn’t sure how much he likes that; with a different set of eyes on him and he’s sure he’ll screw up somewhere. Right on cue, he attempts to pivot and of course that doesn’t work. His hip hits the sink and pain throbs through the bone.

Sam’s back at his side, hands holding Dean’s biceps, trying to pull him up straight. “You alright?”

“Get off.” Dean shrugs him away and stands, going back to the chopping board. He looks at Sam who’s now hovering, and doesn’t bother to tell him to go away. “I started cooking later today because of yesterday. Where were you?”

Sam rubs over his neck. “I was with Aria.”

“Oh. Well, that’s good.” Dean throws more of the herbs into the pot and stirs the dark red sauce. “You should bring her over for dinner. That’s what people do, isn’t it?”

“We’re not serious.”

“You’ve been together since Thanksgiving.” Dean turns down the heat and puts on the saucepan lid before turning back to Sam. “Have you fucked her yet?”

Sam bulks at that, and Dean’s reminded of the same conversation they had when Sam started dating little Julie Quam. Although that one centered on“use condoms” and ended with a Sam that couldn’t look Dean in the eye for the next week. Good times.

“So?” Dean’s pushing for reasons unknown even to him.

“None of your damn business.” Sam bites down on another carrot, and his cheeks grow red. That could take the answer either way, honestly, but Dean knows to leave well enough alone and doesn’t keep pushing.

He digs into the cupboard for another saucepan which he fills with water and puts on the stove. The silence is overwhelming, but at least better than the alternative. Leaving Sam to chew on thoughts of boning Aria makes him forget about Dean. The water starts boiling and Dean dumps the pasta in, enough servings for 4 but they eat like a small family so none will be left.

“She’s the first person I’ve really dated since Jess.”

Sam’s words seem to come from nowhere and Dean turns.

"Is that so?" Stupid words, but he's at a loss of what else to say. Every time he tries to talk to his brother about Jess it just ends up with open mouth, insert foot, and for once Sam's offering the information.

"Yeah." Sam nods slowly several times. "It's still kinda weird, you know? I was planning to marry Jess…" Sam cuts off and grows silent.

"You guys would've been good together," Dean says. He walks around the kitchen to stand beside Sam, one arm propped up on the laminex countertop.

"I would have tried," Sam says. He looks at Dean, really looks at him, and Dean finds himself wanting to shrink back. "Your water's boiling over."

Dean tears himself away from Sam's gaze and goes to turn down the heat.

::

Sam has to keep making excuses about work; falling back into telling Dean he's gone to see Aria. He can't come up with a good reason why he's keeping it from his brother, but chalks it up to not wanting Dean to feel worthless, like he's doing nothing. They can cope, and forcing Dean into a job as a checkout guy or something equally menial wouldn't go over well. Sam knows that, so he keeps his mouth shut.

Seeing Aria comes rarely, usually during his commute from library to gym and it's more the coffee that entices him than the presence of a petite blonde smacking on gum. Still, she smiles and hands him the coffee, chattering on about her day and how she has a new art project she'd love him to see. He tells her he'll be by soon, take her out for dinner, and that faraway glaze that takes over her eyes momentarily tells Sam all he needs to know.

This isn't going to work.

So he leaves. He wanders around the streets for a while, not quite ready to go home, but that soon turns fruitless. Maybe Dean won’t question him - they can just play games or cook or watch TV.

Rather than pass the coffee shop again, he crosses the street and goes the long way toward the house, walking through tree-lined streets and listening to the sounds of the busy nearby freeway. There's always been something peaceful about listening to the steady hum of cars, something grounding.

He'd lived in motels most of his life, and it just became the normal white noise he expected. Even when he started looking for this new house to call their own he refused to choose something too far from the main city. He'd go crazy. And if _he_ didn't, Dean definitely would.

It’s when he rounds the next corner into Bellmore street that he sees Dean. He’s just standing there in the street, leaning against a yellow-brick fence. Sam stops walking and watches him, following his brother’s line of sight to the rusted blue sign of the Bellmore Auto-Shop across the road. He swallows over the rising lump in his throat and turns away; he’ll go home the usual way.

When he gets in the door and Dean’s still not there he quickly dials the auto-shop’s number and then Bobby’s. Plans are easier enough now that they have money.

Next week the impala will sit in the shop, and Sam hopes Dean will see her.

* * *

 

It’s been three years.

Three years since the car hit the tree. Three years since Dean woke up in the hospital with no leg. Three years since they said goodbye to hunting. A day hasn’t passed where Dean isn’t full of regret.

One more physical therapy session, that’s what Dean gives himself. One last chance to prove he can run, and jump, and take a flight of stairs without relying on crutches and sweating out buckets. One last chance for Dr. Vex to even prove that Dean can walk without a limp and drag. Three fucking years and everybody knows; everybody. He can’t even begin to image what Dad would think about this.

Unlike Sam, Dad probably never would have signed.

“Despite what you might think, Dean, you have improved,” Dr. Vex tells him almost as soon as he walks through the door.

“Improved?” Dean scoffs. “It’s been years. Improved? How about when I will be better, huh?”

Dr. Vex sits on one of the chairs by the wall while Dean remains standing in the doorway. “You will never return to exactly the same place you were prior to the amputation.”

“I know that!” He knew that from the moment he woke up and saw the bandages, and it sunk through every nerve and organ in his body when Sam came in and explained it to him. In that moment, Dean hated his brother. Hated the world. Hated himself.

“Do you?” There’s weariness in Dr. Vex’s voice and, _great_ , even Dean’s doctor is giving up on him.

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

Two people far on the other side of the room look up, and Dean averts his eyes to glare at Dr. Vex. Dean hates him the most.

“Optimism is important,” he says. “But we don’t work miracles.”

“That’s what Dr. Connolly said,” Dean mutters. He can remember everything that Dr. Connolly said on that first day, every single word that fell from his lips. _“We don’t work miracles, but we do work medicine…_ ”. Where’s his medical healing then, huh?

“You know what?” Dean says. He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Fuck all of this. I’m done. You told me I could walk, and run, and drive, and play fucking limbo - I can do one of those things. My leg still fucking hurts if I don’t walk in a straight line, and even then it’s only when I’m overloaded with painkillers. So I’m done. Done with all of this. Fuck you.”

Dean doesn’t wait for a response from anyone, he turns and leaves.

He’s not going back.

::

Even a day without taking the painkillers is agony. First it starts in Dean’s leg, a dull throbbing pain that he can push down and away by distracting himself with trashy television soaps. By the time he’s through with one the pain has changed, a mixture of needles and wasps stings that grip into where his leg should be. It’s joined by a feeling similar to the grip of a ghost, burning with cold, and slowly travels up into his chest, his face, his head. Everything thrumming with pain that Dean can’t stop, won’t stop, because he’s quit the physical therapy, the drugs, the prosthesis - all of it.

He’s over all of it.

The pain becomes almost unbearable when he grips the crutch he’s brought back in from the garage and hops toward the kitchen. Alcohol. He can keep having that, downing bottle after bottle because there’s no connection to that and…and this. Whatever the fuck all of this is. Three years. Three fucking years! There’s only one beer in the fridge and he yanks it out, ripping the cap off and downing the contents in two swallows.

It’s late and Sam still isn’t home. So Dean moves to his room and slumps on the bed, pain spreading and throbbing and burning. It feels like every organ, every nerve, every bone, every fucking molecule in his body is intent on breaking him. Dean can never escape it, can never get away with it.

Dean rolls to his side and stares at the window, trying to focus on the softly fluttering curtains to block the rest out. Of course it doesn’t work, and he’s trying to swallow down the pain that threatens to come out of his mouth in either the form of words or puke. “ _Fuck_ ” gets out between his gritted teeth and he doesn’t know why it’s hurting so much.

::

When Sam gets home, it’s almost midnight. All the lights are off, and he hopes that means Dean’s asleep. Sam stopped by the hospital between his shifts, hoping for once Dean would be willing to walk home with him, but he ran into Lori instead she told him Dean had left. That he stormed out of physical therapy, and aid he was never coming back. Apparently Sam’s supposed to be the one who talks to him, but Lori obviously still hasn’t found out just how stubborn Dean is.

Sam shucks his jacket in the living room, tossing it over the couch to join the other assortments of clothing. Dean will cook with only the slightest of grumbles, but ask him to do the washing and he’ll pitch a speech of indignation.

That’s Dean. Sam’s used to it.

Sam will throw the clothes in the washing machine first thing tomorrow morning. Right now he’s exhausted; an early morning shift at the library and the late shift at the gym is doing nothing to keep his eyes open. Even considering going into the kitchen and heating up whatever leftovers Dean’s put in the fridge seems like too much effort. Shower and bed, that sounds good.

It’s when Sam’s walking down the hall that he hears a soft “ _fuck_ ” coming from Dean’s room. For the shortest of moments he’s struck with an image of Dean having found a woman to bring home. Then he realises that the sound was far from anything good, and there’s a hiss of pain loud enough to break through the wooden door.

“Dean?” Sam follows with a soft rap of knuckles.

The noise behind the door stops immediately, and Sam knows for certain it was Dean in pain. Always trying to hide it, from the time he broke his ankle as a kid and made Sam swear not to tell Dad, to everything that’s followed the crash. If it weren’t for Lori and next of kin rights he’d know nothing about Dean’s condition. He doesn’t want that anymore.

“Dean?” he repeats, knocking louder on the door. “Are you okay?”

Still nothing. Of course nothing - Dean’s not going to talk on his own accord. Sam turns the doorknob and steps into the room. It’s not as dark as the rest of the house; streetlights sparking through the window and letting Sam see where he’s walking.

Dean’s turned away from him and he’s not moving, but Sam can see the tension in his back, all the muscles bunched up. The sheet is thrown loosely over his hips, but the lack of bump underneath says that Dean has ditched the prosthesis. Sam doesn’t see it anywhere in the room.

“Dean,” Sam says again, with more certainty this time.

The floorboards creak as he walks across them, and the bed dips when he sits down. Dean doesn’t move at all, but Sam watches the muscles in his shoulder twitch. He could be asleep, and Sam would believe it if it weren’t for how tense and tight he was. He’s in pain - Sam can see that without seeing his brother’s face.

“I know you’re not asleep,” Sam says quietly. When there’s no response he adds, “Does your leg hurt?”

Dean stays still, quiet, and Sam knows he’s not about to get anything from him. He shuffles up the bed, leaning against the headboard and the half a dozen pillows there. Dean’s become like a hoarder for them, and Sam chalks it up to the fact they’ve rarely had more than one pillow to use at any one time. They’re just little changes, and Sam doesn’t think Dean notices he’s making them.

“I got a job,” Sam says. Maybe he can say something that will make Dean react. “Two, actually. One at the library, cataloging - actually, mostly it’s telling freshman to stop making out behind the shelves.” He lets out a small laugh, but there’s no response from Dean. “Then I got one at the gym…” he hesitates, but decides to keep going, “I met a guy who works in rehabilitation.”

There’s a very small movement from Dean, his back tensing further, and Sam’s not sure how that’s even possible. He’s shocked Dean can stay so silent when he’s obviously in so much pain.

“He taught me a bit,” Sam says, even though he’s not sure how much he should say. “Different techniques to help with phantom limb and nerve pain.”

That’s what seems to get something. He sees Dean moving, just enough to look over his shoulder and he’s staring into Sam’s eyes. Sam can tell there’s supposed to be anger and that’s all, but Dean’s are clouded and it’s raw, physical pain within them.

“I knew you weren’t asleep,” Sam says softly, dumbly.

“Not with you rambling on,” Dean says. His voice comes out tight and breathy, and the sound thumps painfully into Sam’s chest.

“Did you take your pain meds?”

There’s a pause on Dean’s part until he finally shakes his head. It’s relief more than anything that fills Sam; Dean’s not lying and the pain is only there because he hasn’t take the meds. Good, the pain’s not there for other reasons. He’s not going backwards.

“Do you want me to get them?” Sam asks, already moving to get off the bed.

“I want you to leave,” Dean says, and his voice still holds that same strangled quality.

“Hey.” Sam means for it to be a gesture of comfort, but the moment his hand touches Dean’s leg it’s like a bomb going off. Dean jolts back, his body slamming into the bedside table and he lets out a cry of pain. “Sorry,” Sam goes to touch him again, but pulls back. “Sorry.”

Sam doesn’t know where to put his hands, so they end up on the sheets between him and Dean. Dean’s breathing is coming harder now, filling the whole room and joined by only the soft hum of traffic outside. When Dean goes to stand Sam raises a hand in front of him, not touching, but making him stay down.

“I’ll get them.” Sam knows his brother needs those painkillers, now more than ever. “Stay here.”

Sam rushes to the bathroom and has to shove past ibuprofen, aspirin, tylenol - over-the-counter painkillers he didn’t even know they had, let alone used. He decides quickly that Dean put his painkillers at the back of the medicine cabinet deliberately, but can’t for the life of him figure out why. He fills a glass with water and makes his way back to the room.

Dean’s sitting up now - facing away from...the door? _Sam?_ \- with his elbows braced on his knees and head hung. Sam sits down softly before he tries to make Dean take the pills. “Take these.” He presses the glass to Dean’s skin until Dean reaches out and takes the two pills.He downs them in a single swallow and ignores the water. He’s still not facing Sam.

“Are you look at me?” Sam asks. He thinks better of reaching out and trying to make him.

“Nope.”

Sam sighs and moves back up the bed, the cold metal of the headboard landing across his neck. “Lori said you stormed out of physical therapy today.”

“Lori shouldn’t be telling you shit.”

That’s probably right. But when he couldn’t find Dean despite it being his scheduled time and there was no answer at home, he did panic. Just a little.

“She wouldn’t if you were okay.” Sam lets himself reach out a hand and lightly touch Dean’s shoulder. Dean doesn’t pull away. “Why did you leave? She said you were doing well.”

“Lori doesn’t _know_ shit, either.”

That’s also probably right; Sam of all people knows how hard Dean is to get, but he’s seen the improvement himself. He’s watched Dean walk up and down stairs without thinking, watched him ditch the crutch months ago, and sometimes Sam completely forgets about the amputation because he can’t tell. Dean walks near the same as he always has.

He tugs a little on Dean’s shoulder. “Lie down.”

When Dean tries to twist away Sam holds on, keeping up with the gentle tugging but being careful not to bruise or pinch his brother’s skin. He also doesn’t go close to Dean’s legs.

“Get the fuck off me, Sam,” Dean growls.

Sam doesn’t budge. At least until those pills start working, Sam is staying right here. Under his hand he can feel the tension in Dean’s shoulders. “Dante - the guy from the gym - he was showing me different kinds of stretches and massages, the kind he uses for his clients.”

“You really are gay,” Dean says, his voice a huff of breath followed by a soft wince.

“Dean, just listen to me,” Sam says, frustrated. Trust Dean not to take anything seriously. Then again, Sam is asking his brother to let down his defences, and that’s something Dean’s never done. Something Dean never _will_ do. “Lie down.”

“I’m not a fucking science project.” The end of ‘project’ comes with a gasp-hiss and those drugs should be working by now, dammit, why aren’t that?

“I’m not saying you are,” Sam says. “The blood’s pooling to your leg, that’s why it hurts so much. You need to lie down, it’ll help some.”

“Stow the sympathy,” Dean says. His voice is stronger now. “I don’t need your new-age crap.”

“It’s not sympathy,” Sam insists. The frustration is lending itself to anger. He’s tired of this Dean, the one that tries to hide everything away. “And you stow the macho act. The only person who thinks you need to pretend everything’s okay is you.”

“Just go away.”

Hell if he’s about to do that. Sam squeezes tighter against Dean’s shoulder, pulls harder. Dean moves the slightest amount, repositioning himself further back on the bed and by now Sam can feel the heat of his brother’s back through his shirt. If Sam’s really listening - and he kind of is - there’s the softest, slightest amount of a sigh that follows. Dean’s leg’s up straighter - it must be helping.

“Why don’t you go out with your girlfriend?” Dean’s voice sounds a little more natural now, but it’s still like a hand is almost choking him and the words struggle to get free.

It’s the tip of Sam’s tongue to tell him about the breakup, but he’s not sure how well that would go over. Dean would probably just keep blaming himself for something that could not possibly be connected. Instead, Sam says, “It’s almost midnight.”

“That wouldn’t have stopped me,” Dean mutters.

He sounds almost jealous, and Sam has to stop himself from feeling sorry for him. He knows Dean hasn’t gone cruising, hasn’t had any sort of hookup since all of this happened. It’s just erased more of who Dean is, and for that Sam feels sorry. Not only for Dean, but for himself - day by day he’s losing his brother, and despite all that talk about years, it’s _been_ years and nothing much has changed.

There’s another small sound of pain from Dean. “Come on Dean, lie down.” At least if Sam gets Dean to do that it might take the edge off while he rummages for an effective packet of painkillers.

“Go tell your girlfriend to lie down.”

Sam’s taken aback and would roll his eyes if Dean had said that in any other scenario. Such a stupid, childish insult and even if Dean does have the humour of a twelve-year-old kid it usually has some underlying thread of sophistication and wit. This comment just sounded…bitter. Sam might as well tell him the truth; maybe the self-loathing will disappear. Sam can’t keep a chick and, according to Dean, has everything going for him.

“We broke up,” he says.

“What?” Dean glances over his shoulder, and Sam only realises then how close he’s let himself be. He watches Dean’s eyes drop to the hand on his shoulder and Sam stops pulling. He just leaves it there, and Dean stops trying to tug away.

“Yeah,” Sam keeps his voice quiet, but he doesn’t know why. He also doesn’t know why he’s still here when Dean’s eyes don’t look so full of pain anymore, and he’s obviously not about to lie down. “We were never really together, and then I got the jobs…”

Something flashes across Dean’s face that makes Sam’s heartbeat wearily against his chest. He’s been trying so hard to keep everything the same, but he knows now that’s not possible. Even having a job just proves to make Dean think about how he doesn’t, how he can’t hunt. Sam knows all of this. He also knows that he can’t rid Dean of the pain he seems to constantly be in.

Sam reaches out and gently lays his hand over Dean’s right hip, and Dean doesn’t react. At least not right away. At some point his eyes flicker downward, and Sam moves his hand away with a mumbled, “Sorry, I shouldn’t--”

He cuts himself off. Shouldn’t what? His mind swirls with some sort of answer for that. Shouldn’t be here? Shouldn’t be forcing Dean? He doesn’t know, but Dean swings his leg up onto the bed and moves into his pillows, their shoulders brushing now and Dean staring straight ahead.

“It’s okay,” Dean does say, his voice monotone, detached. There’s a second where Dean’s eyes go skyward before he turns his face and settles on Sam’s.

Car headlights wash the room, and this is the first time Sam can really see Dean’s face in detail. His eyes are settling on anything, and he has his bottom lip trapped between his teeth. The light fades just as quickly as it came in, and spots dance in front of Sam’s eyes are he tries to re-adjust to the darker room.

“What new age junk that guy teach you, huh?” Dean asks, his voice back to that strange state but Sam knows it’s not because of pain anymore. What he doesn’t know is what it _is_ because of.

“Uh…” Sam swipes his tongue over his lips and tries to concentrate. Dante. Yeah. Right. Rehabilitation. That stuff. The stuff he’d stumbled out asking for after seeing Dante in the hydropool with an amputee. One of the people he actually spilled to about everything regarding Dean.

“Thanks for bringing me the painkillers,” Dean says slowly. “The leg’s stopped hurting.”

Sam nods because words aren’t coming to him right now. He looks down and sees himself dragging the bedsheet between his fingers. He drops the fabric, and decides it’s about time to get out of here. The painkillers have done their job; tomorrow he can ask Dante for a book on stretches or whatever. Maybe Dean will go for that. But instead of getting up, Sam’s held back when Dean drops his hand and it brushes over Sam’s.

“Seriously,” Dean says while Sam tries to get with it. “It’s okay.”

Sam can’t even work out what Dean’s saying is okay, only that whatever _this_ is seems pretty far from okay. And that Sam not moving his hand away is just about as far in the opposite direction as one can get from _okay_. But he keeps doing it anyway. After squeezing his eyes shut and breathing in silently through his nose he raises his gaze again to look at Dean.

Another car passes by and the headlights flash over them once again. Dean’s forehead is creased and his lip is still between his teeth, looking a deeper shade of red. Sam can’t stop staring, and a whole lot of things happen at once.

The first thing - the most important thing - is that an image of the first time he saw Dean after two years apart flickers through Sam’s mind. In a house not all that far from here, when his eyes adjusted to the dark, and Dean was on top of him with a shit-eating grin and a hand pressed against his throat. In that moment, a part of Sam wanted to punch his brother out, but another part, the most prominent part, also wanted to grab Dean and never let go. Sam never should have left, and in this moment he knows that.

The next is that Dean is close enough to him that Sam can hear the fast pace of his breathing, and feel the hot breath against his face, his lips. And he’d be lying if he said he’d never imagined this. For years even, in a motel bed next to Dean’s and he could listen to his brother’s steady breathing, light snores. Or in the shower, the one place where he could be alone with his thoughts and…whatever else. _Dean_. The person who had never let him down, though God knows Sam gave him enough reason to over the years.

When Dean speaks it comes as a shock, and Sam’s eyes flicker back to Dean’s. “Yeah?” he says, and Sam knows exactly what he’s asking.

“Yeah,” Sam responds in a voice that’s shaking and slightly strangled.

Dean nods about a hundred fucking times before he moves forward. “Okay,” Dean says, and his lips are so close that Sam feels the words as much as he hears them. “So you want to show me Dante’s Rehabilitation 101?”

Sam knows that’s far from what Dean actually wants. But what Dean _wants_...that’s more terrifying than Sam’s willing to consider. Because it has to be those painkillers, too strong or something. Or, if not that, then Dean seriously needs to get to a bar and chase something with a skirt ASAP. But Dean’s hand moves away from Sam’s and there’s this short, cold moment where Sam suddenly discovers that he _does_ want.

Dean clears the miniscule distance between them, and it’s hardly anything, the lightest of touches, but it goes straight to Sam’s head and makes him feel dizzy, makes every negative thought cut away and disappear somewhere he can deal with it later. Or so he’d like to - Sam’s mind has never worked well with ‘later’.

“Hey…uh…hey—” Real eloquent, Sam. “You…”

“Shut up, Sam,” Dean says. His face is still so close, and each word presses another breath against Sam’s face.

“You’re just--” _You’re just frustrated, you’re just in pain, you’re just high off those drugs. You’re just caught up in thinking you’re not the same because of the fucking accident._ And it’s not true.

None of it’s true.

“I’m just nothing,” Dean says. He leans forward and when their lips touch again Sam stops thinking whatever he was thinking. “You want to talk about this? Later you can talk all you want.”

Dean moves away from Sam and lies back on the bed, his shoulders propped up by at least three pillows. As Sam looks at him he nods, lost somewhere between wanting to get the hell out of this room, wanting to kiss Dean again, and wanting to just lie down and close his eyes and forget about everything. It bothers him that the third on the list seems the most unthinkable.

Eventually it’s Dean who decides for him, with a low “Come here” and Sam just goes. He forgets logic, he forgets everything he ever wanted to say, because Dean’s ‘later’ is making more and more sense to him right about now. He settles himself next to Dean, and for a moment he’s simply looking at his brother. Dean’s face, and chest, and arms that are still the same as always. They never changed.

Then it’s becoming too much like his third train of thought, so he leans over and kisses Dean again.

This time Dean is much more in for it, and his mouth opening against Sam’s takes Sam by surprise. But when Sam goes to jump back, Dean has a hand firmly placed behind his head. Dean’s holding him in place, bringing him closer until all Sam has to do is throw one leg over Dean and he’ll be on top of him.

So he does.

Dean pauses at that, and Sam could move away if he really wanted to. _Wanted_ being the key word right here. He still has logic, he still has a mind that’s confused as fuck about this turn of events, but there’s just as much confusion in the eyes staring up at him. So for whatever reason that spurs Sam along and he touches his lips to Dean’s mouth again.

He thinks Dean might sigh before his hands card through Sam’s hair again, but they’re there. Firm and holding, and Sam _wants_. He wants this. For whatever fucked up reason, he wants nothing else in the world than to be right here. Because Dean’s still perfectly fine - screw the leg.

When Sam’s lips lower to Dean’s chin and then neck, Dean lets out a slightly strangled, “What—?”, but it’s Sam’s turn to shush him with a finger to his brother’s warm lips. It’s a question not too far from his own mind, but this is Dean, and Sam knows that Dean also _wants_. He as ever since the accident, and more than he wants to _take_ , Sam wants to _give_.

It’s the least Sam can do for the person who’s looked after him his entire life.

Sam’s mouth and tongue follow the center of Dean’s chest and stomach, leaving a thin line of cooling saliva as he moves. He flickers his eyes up to Dean’s face, and there’s just enough light from the outside street lamps to see how wide they are. His mouth is also open, paused in another silent “what?”, but Sam just smiles - he really doesn’t know how he manages that, his heart is beating so fast with nerves - and presses a kiss just above Dean’s shorts.

Dean mutters something that Sam doesn’t quite catch, but when Sam’s hand trails down his hip it’s a very definite, “No,” that comes from him. Sam freezes and looks back up at Dean.

“Not the leg,” he says, and that strangled, breathless voice from before has disappeared completely. This is a smooth, in control Dean. Sam’s just shocked that same Dean doesn’t push him away and demand to know what’s going on. It must show on Dean’s face, because he follows up with a softer, “It’s okay, Sammy. I want this.”

That’s enough.

Sam…isn’t so sure what he’s doing. But he moves his hand away from Dean’s hip and brushes up his side instead, his mouth making its way back up Dean’s body. When he’s back at his lips he kisses them again. Slow, open mouthed, and realising all over again and again this is Dean that he’s kissing. Dean, who’s actually a pretty damn good kisser and touches the tip of his tongue to the roof of Sam’s mouth and makes Sam’s cock jerk painfully in his jeans.

When Sam shifts just slightly he can feel the line of Dean’s own cock pressing against Sam’s thigh. He reaches down and under the elastic waistband of the shorts and Dean pushes up against his hand.

“Holy shit--” Dean hisses against Sam’s ear, and Sam remembers another time he heard that. In a shitty rental back in Oregon, when Sam came home early from school and Dean didn’t feel the need to shut the door to their shared room. Dean and a girl of course, and Sam saw her kneeling between Dean’s legs. He might have been a fourteen year old virgin, but it didn’t take a read-through of the Kama Sutra to know what she was doing.

He may or may not have jerked off to that image until time made it fade away, and now it’s back in full-force but Dean’s saying the same words to him. For him.

Sam twists his wrist under the head of Dean’s cock and this time gets a “Fuck. Sammy--” and Sam’s definitely never heard that before. At least not said in that way, Dean’s voice breathy and right by his ear. Sam wants to replace the old image, to make it new.

“Not your leg,” Sam says quietly.

Sam sucks kisses into Dean’s neck and moves lower, all the way down, while he can feel Dean’s cock trailing up against his body. It’s hotter than the rest of Dean’s body, burning against him. Sam presses his tongue to the head and Dean mutters something unintelligible that might be a mangled attempt at “ _Sam_ ”. That does things to Sam’s stomach - making it clench - and pleasure pools lower.

He runs his hands back down Dean’s body, slowly, mapping out the scars he finds. He can name them all. _Skinwalker in Tampa, demon in Toledo, poltergeist in Baltimore_ , and now the array of marks on his leg from _Car Crash in Sunnyvale_. He doesn’t touch those newest scars, because there’s a sharp intake of breath from Dean.

“Not your leg,” Sam says just as quietly as before, and presses his mouth above the jut of Dean’s hip. At the spot he can touch. “Not your leg.” Then to his cock, that bends the slightest amount to the left, and the place where Sam can also touch. “I won’t touch your leg.”

Sam moves his hand along the length of Dean’s cock, alternating between rubbing and squeezing. Dean is making soft noises, a mixture of groans and moans and caught breaths that do something to Sam he can’t even explain. It’s like all his jerk off fantasies come true. And he’s doing them. _Doing them to Dean_. He has to press a hand to his jeans at just knowing that, like being that teenager all over again. But now he can look Dean in the eye.

Two sets of headlights pass through the window, one after the other with hardly any space. They light up Dean’s face and trail down his body. It must be faster than Sam’s mind takes in, because it’s more like a series of snapshots where everything about Dean comes to light in a way Sam’s never seen before.

They grew up in motel rooms and the backseat of a car, and it’s not like Sam’s never seen his brother naked before, but he’s never looked. He’s never been able to point out the spots he finds on Dean’s body, the exact shimmer of silver the scars make, the way Dean’s arms flex. He wonders how he’s managed to miss so much after all these years.

“God, Dean,” Sam murmurs against his skin.

Sam presses his mouth to Dean’s cock again. He keeps his hands above Dean’s hips, rubbing small circles with his thumbs. There’s no possible way he can transfer what he wants those to mean, but the whole while he’s thinking it’s okay and I‘m here, because he thinks there should be doubts. Dean shouldn’t be holding his hair or making strangled whispers Sam can’t decipher. But he is, and Sam never, ever wants him to stop.

He slips his lips over Dean’s cock and Dean lets out another “Holy shit--” and presses up into Sam’s mouth. The circles Sam’s making on Dean’s hips are likely to become more like light bruises as he holds his brother down.

It doesn’t take much longer, a few more swipes of Sam’s tongue, and Dean’s breathing becomes more erratic, his body twitching under Sam’s hands. Sam moves back to jerk Dean’s cock as he comes, hot against his face and hand. And _holy shit_ he thinks himself. Because that…that…

Dean’s moving out from under Sam and sitting up. He cups Sam’s cheek and Sam moves toward him, mind still not fully caught up. Dean kisses him. It’s a lower slower, languid, not as much tongue as before but it’s still a kiss. It’s still a kiss from _his brother_.

Why doesn’t this feel more wrong?

Seeing Dean struggle in physical therapy, watching Dean try to walk again, seeing the way Dean stood outside the mechanics’…all of that made Sam’s chest ache. But this? This makes his chest feel warm.

Dean’s breath is so hot against his face and Sam chases it, pressing Dean back against the pillows until there’s no physical space between them and Sam can just kiss. Kiss and trace Dean’s mouth with his tongue, listening to the way Dean sighs against him. He sounds content - happy even - and Sam’s so over being worried about that. He kisses him and kisses him until Dean starts to slow his returns. Sam backs off but keeps his hands on Dean.

When Dean’s hands slide to Sam’s belt buckle, Sam shakes his head. Dean looks at him through heavy-lidded eyes, and Sam can’t tell if it’s the satiation of sex or tiredness that’s doing that. Either way, Dean doesn’t need to do this for him now. Not right now. He’s too tired, and Sam can wait.

“You backing out on me?” Dean asks, and that’s definitely tiredness clouding his voice.

“Nuh-uh,” Sam says. He lies back on the pillow next to Dean and stays facing him. He’s just at the right angle that a soft stream of light still hits his face.

Dean’s hand slides against his jeans and cups his cock, but Sam shakes his head.

“Tomorrow, okay?” Saying it out loud does crazy things to his stomach and, judging by the harsh intake of breath from his brother, Dean’s thinking likewise.

Dean’s hand moves away. “Perfect, Sammy,” he murmurs, and Sam’s heart is back to its weary beat. Slow and swelling, like it couldn’t get any bigger, any fuller.

Sam moves closer and smooths out Dean’s hair. There’s a silent sigh that brushes his arm and then Dean closes his eyes.

Later, when Dean’s asleep, Sam lets himself look again. He lets his fingertips trace over Dean’s hip, following the curve to the dip toward his stomach. Dean’s breath is soft against Sam’s arm and, yeah, later sounds good right about now.

* * *

 

It snows this Christmas. Or, at least tries to. Dean watches outside the window as so-called snowflakes fall to the ground. When they hit it looks more like sludge and turns grey almost immediately. Still, snow is snow, and they haven’t seen it in years. Supernatural sons-of-bitches seem to prefer the heat. There’s a pang when he thinks that’s where they’re living most of the year. There should have been more potential hunts. He knows Sam keeps the paper from him.

Sam…

Sam, who is lying next to him. Every night for the past four months. Sam shifts, half rolling over so his arm pins down Dean’s body. Normally Dean would push him away, but the alarm’s going to go off in three minutes so he doesn’t bother.

For the last three minutes before an obnoxious buzzing - not even quality music, not even the damn radio - forces him to get up, Dean keeps watching the snow. Maybe they’ll get a few inches, enough to make some decent snowballs. That will make a better wakeup call, and he considers going out to start an arsenal.

_Beep. Beep--_

Sam wakes up after two of the beeps, rolling back the other way to turn it off and freeing Dean in the process. He lies back, eyes still closed, but Dean knows he’s awake.

He moves closer to Sam, pressing his leg between both of Sam’s. “Merry Christmas,” he says.

“Mmm,” Sam mumbles, his voice still thick sleep.

“What did you get me, a pony?”

Sam cracks open an eyelid and raises one sleep-warm arm to slide over Dean’s back. “That’s what you owe me.” With his free hand, Sam twines the string of Dean’s amulet around his fingers. “Tit for tat.”

Dean brushes his lips down over Sam’s and pushes down all those stupid thoughts that still haven’t left him alone. Like _brother_. That word’s been pissing him off more and more lately. When Sam pulls him closer Dean rolls away, the stump getting too close. Nobody needs to touch that.

“So, what did you get me?” Dean asks, propping himself up on an elbow.

Sam is still on his back, staring up at the ceiling. His eyes roll to look at Dean. “Hmm?”

“Christmas, Sammy.” He punches him softly. “Wake up.”

“Oh, well.” Sam rolls over, and they’re almost touching now. “I…got you the impala.”

“What?”

“She’s here.” Dean can hear the hesitation in Sam’s voice, and he already knows what’s coming. “At the auto shop.”

It’s a kick in the gut, and Dean presses himself all the way to the end of the bed. “Why the _fuck_ would you do that?”

Sam looks like he’s about to move, but obviously thinks better of it and stays still. One hand clenches into the sheets between them. “I saw you there, looking at the cars. I know you’re afraid--”

“No.” That’s it. Dean turns to grab the crutch and pulls himself out of bed. “I’m not afraid.”

“Then what is it?” In that moment, Dean thinks he hates Sam. He hates how his voice is soft, condescending, the way his eyes are still so filled with that pity even though he denies otherwise. Dean Winchester is _not_ afraid.

“The car’s busted, Sam,” he says, making his way to the door with small, slow movements. Not using the crutches in so long means he has to master them again and again. He can’t win. He’ll never be able to win. “It’d cost more to buy the pieces than it’s worth.”

Sam scoffs. Actually fucking scoffs. “Can you even hear yourself? Seriously, Dean. Listen to what you’re saying.”

“I can, thank you very much.” Dean’s finally reached the door which should only be five, maybe six steps from the bed. He looks back at Sam who hasn’t moved except to look in Dean’s direction. It’s still all that pity clouding on the surface and Dean can’t stand it.

“Get rid of the car,” Dean says. “Spend the money on something useful.”

And when Dean slams the door, he winces.

::

Sam knows Dean’s still angry the next night. They’re at another neighbourhood party, this one pulled together with all the people still left in town after Christmas celebrations, drunk on expensive wine and chocolate liqueurs. The kids run around with nerf guns and Nintendo DS’s, and the sixteen-year-old who was given a car revs it at the end of the street.

From a distance, Sam can see Dean cringe at the noise.

He wouldn’t talk about the impala again. Actually, he didn’t say much of anything. For a while Sam thinks this is how it’s going to be now. Stoic Dean and just forgetting about the thing that’s happened between them. Eventually finding some form of routine where they’re brothers and nothing else happens. Sam still isn’t sure what he thinks about that, but he woke up last night breathing heavy and couldn’t sleep again.

“How’s everything?”

It’s Marilyn. She looks strikingly similar to Lori last year, bright red and adorned with white, only she has a trencoat instead of a dress. She hands Sam a beer and he takes it, twisting the cap and taking a mouthful.

“Pretty good,” he says, because nobody really cares how you are. And he’s not bad. Not at all.

“Have you tried some of the turkey pot-pie? It’s my specialty.” She winks and takes a sip of her red wine. Who drinks wine at an informal Christmas party anyway? As the years pass, Sam is become less and less interested in this suburban living dream he once had.

“I haven’t, but I’m pretty sure my br -- Dean -- I’m pretty sure Dean likes it.” He swallows hard, and then follows it up with more beer. He just knows he’s going to slip. “Excuse me--”

“Of course, dear,” she says, and gestures him away.

He makes a beeline for Dean amongst the crowd. But, the moment Sam reaches him, Dean has his brother’s hand and is pushing him up against a nearby house.

“You’re drunk,” Sam says automatically. He can smell the beer coming from Dean’s breath, and his eyes are too unfocused to ring sober.

“Party, Sammy,” Dean says, and there’s the slightest slur to his voice. “‘m meant to be.”

Dean’s hand knots into the front of Sam’s coat and drags him closer until their mouths are smashed together. Dean tastes like beer, his tongue bitter as it swipes across Sam’s mouth. But Sam still opens up, lets him in, and finds his hands pulling at Dean’s back. He lets Dean kiss him until he can feel the heat of Dean’s cock against his leg, because even being drunk doesn’t inhibit Dean’s sexual prowess.

“What’s with you?” Sam asks, holding Dean far back enough that he can look him in the eye.

“I didn’t go home with the girl, Sammy,” he murmurs. He tries to push himself closer to Sam again, but Sam holds him steady. “Just you.”

Sam relents with his hold enough that Dean rests his head on Sam’s shoulder, hands still clenched into the material of his coat and breath warm against Sam’s neck. Sam can’t see anyone else out in the street, but can hear Christmas tunes still softly playing from one of the sound systems a neighbour brought out. _Silent Night_ fades into _I’ll Be Home For Christmas_ , soft and winding through the darkness.

“You’re my brother,” Dean says, his voice muffled by Sam’s clothing.

“That’s kind of hard to forget,” Sam says, and he isn’t sure if that’s the right answer but it’s the honest one. He can’t forget. He doesn’t really want to, either. And that thought surprises him.

Dean takes an unsteady step backward and looks up at Sam with his eyebrows creased, like he’s trying to focus on something but can’t quite find it. “I love you, you know?”

The words seem to come from nowhere, and Sam has to keep staring at Dean until they sink in. The last time Dean said that he was about ten years old, and it was in an entirely different context to now. Sam thinks he’s probably smiling - grinning - consider the ache along his jaw. Then he laughs and it bounces against the bricks until Dean is giving him the strangest look, but Sam also sees a smile.

“Yeah,” he says, draping his arm over Dean’s shoulder. “I know.”

::

Three days later, Sam gets a day off work and uses it to go to the garage.

Dean’s still sleeping, splayed out over three-quarters of the bed with his arms hooked around three of their four pillows. Sam’s just lucky it’s cold and body heat makes up for the space-heater they’re stuck with. In summer he might have to set some boundaries, then he smiles at the thought. _Summer_. They could still have this then. It’s crazy.

The garage reminds Sam of the job Dean held back in Ohio. He must have been sixteen, seventeen, and stopped by the garage everyday on his way home from school. Dean was always under a car hood or body, spanner in hand and grease stanning his arms, forehead, and cheeks. He would look up, smile, say “Heya, Sammy” and go right back to work.

Now, Sam goes up to the first guy he sees after passing the huge roller doors. He spoke to a Rick on the phone. “Hi. I had a ‘67 Impala towed here.”

The guy looks up from the engine he’s tinkering with. “Sam, right?”

“And you’re Rick?”

“Yeah.” He wipes his hand on a grimy cloth and shakes Sam’s hand. “Nice car, I must say. Boss wouldn’t let me touch her.”

“Yeah, she’s something special.” Sam doesn’t bother elaborating; that car’s been through more crashes, spills, and eventual survival stories than Sam can even recall. Him, Dad, and Dean had all bled across her leather seats, flooring her to the nearest hospital - or hotel, if home-done stitches were safer than the cops getting involved with a hunt. John’s logic - Sam didn’t always agree.

“So, are you gonna take her away? Because I’d be happy to look her over. See if it’s possible to get her cleaned up. That crash though, man, smashed her up pretty good. What happened, anyway?”

Sam pauses, then decides there’s no point lying. He doesn’t have to include the point about Dean’s injuries. “Swerved to avoid a car and hit a tree.” At least that’s what the police said. He’ll never really know.

Rick lets out a low whistle. “That’ll do it.”

“Do you think she’s fixable? I mean, at all?”

Sam would like to say he doesn’t want to get his hopes up, but they’re already teetering at the edge of the world’s highest cliff face. She’s been fixed before, completely from the ground up, but that was Dean doing it. Even if she were compacted into a cube he’d find some way to save her. Sam is a half-assed excuse for a replacement.

“I’d have to have a proper look at her - like I said, boss is overprotective of these old muscle cars.” Rick swipes a hand through his hair. “But I’ll be frank - even just from looking I can tell you the frame’s gonna need some serious re-alignment. Then we’ve got to make sure the engine still goes good, transmission’s still working, and then most of the driver’s side paneling will be in need of serious repair. Not saying it’s impossible, but…”

 _But it’s probably not worth it_. Sam mentally finishes the sentence.

“I’d be happy to let you tell me what needs to be done,” Sam says. “Provided you let me help out.”

“Wow, man, really?” Rick grins and swipes a hand over his forehead again, perspiration beading. “Of course, I’ll let you do whatever you want. Got to talk to the boss, though - tell him it’s alright. Awesome. You’ve got one bad-ass car, Sam.”

“It’s…it’s my brother’s.” He bites down on his tongue so hard and fast he can taste flecks of copper. _Fuck_. He should’ve just kept up with the husband rouse. Too many lies, he’s going to slip at some point.

“Then you’re part of one lucky family.” Rick grins again, with a faraway look in his eyes. Yeah, the car’s special. Very special. “Come on, we’ll go talk to the boss then see what can be done.”

::

Sam wanted to be heavily involved in this rebuilding, but he quickly realises how much about cars he doesn’t know. Watching Dean fix her was hardly the same as doing these things himself. Sam could change oil and water, fill her up with gas, and maybe tell you what made the engine go ‘clunk’. Everything else…well, let’s just say it was almost as hard as writing briefs in law school.

Still, Sam goes there autoshop every spare minute he has outside of work and Dean. He and Rick repair the frame by yanking it with chains, and Sam’s sure that’s just an attempt to fuck the car up enough that they can sell it for parts - LKQ, Rick tells him, apparently she’s perfect for it - but it works. She’s exposing metal and there’s dents that slam all the way into the seats, but nothing’s worse. Sam finally trusts them to know what they’re doing.

Now he just needs Dean willing to give it a try.

Sam murmurs it against Dean’s ear as he drifts toward sleep, still always sharing a bed as Mountain View becomes coated with a fine layer of snow. Every night it falls, and by afternoon it’s melted away. He doesn’t tell Dean that he’s working on the car, but does tell him she’s not beyond repair, that he’s hired a guy named Rick to make it worthwhile. But he’s not as good as Dean, nowhere near.

“Fuck off,” Dean groans, and rolls onto his side. “I already made you come.”

“And now you have a headache?” Sam offers, but Dean throws a pillow at him and that’s the end of that.

Sam needs to give it time.  
  
::  
  


Dean’s only going there to see if Sam’s telling the truth, really. One walk past on his way to pick up bread because apparently Sam eats sandwiches like there’s an apocalypse on the horizon and forgets someone else lives in the damn house. Dean stays on the opposite side of the street and slows his steps, because his leg still hurts after a certain distance. That’s all it is.

He sees the car first, and that makes him stop. He could hardly look at her after the crash, and he can hardly look at her now. How the fuck Sam thinks she can be saved he’ll never know - there’s dents stretching across her left side and he doesn’t want to think about what the hood looks like. At least he can’t inspect the engine from this distance, but he’s sure it’ll never be the same again.

After a few seconds of staring, Dean sees Sam. His first thought is _why the hell is he there?_ His second thought is that, for the first time in years, he’s wearing a plaid shirt. That alone makes Dean start walking forward. It’s like when they were hunting, before Sam ditched all the clothes they could carry in duffels and traded them in for suits and ties and pinstripes. Every time Dean does laundry it looks strange, even after all this time.

“Hey,” Dean says when he’s close enough to be heard.

Sam looks up, startled. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you the same thing.”

Sam stares at him evenly, but he’s the first to break. “I was working on her.” He runs his hand across the impala’s side.

“I can see that much.”

Dean’s not angry, not really. He’s not entirely sure _what_ he’s feeling. If someone has to be touching his car…he’s glad it’s Sam. Because Dean can’t. Everything inside is already telling him to flee.

“We can fix her,” Sam says. “The mechanics said so.”

The way Sam says it sounds like he’s trying to convince himself more than anyone. Dean nods, humouring him.

“Why are you doing it?” Dean asks, eyes steady on Sam. He can’t look at the impala.

His leg starts aching and he reaches down to press his hand into the flesh. Sam had attempted to teach him these massages and stretches and whatever new-age crap gym junkies are peddling. It didn’t work. The painkillers seem to be giving him a little more relief, so that’s something.

“I didn’t think you’d want just strangers working on her,” Sam says. “I wanted to supervise.”

“No offence, Sammy, but chances are the professionals know what they’re doing.”

“They do.” Sam smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “They fixed the frame, started beating in the panels. I wanted to get it done before I went back to school. Then maybe you could--”

Dean knows where this is going and cuts Sam off with a harsh “No.” Sam stops, mouth hanging open. Dean continues, “I guess I didn’t teach you enough about cars. The car was totalled, Sam. Even if you manage to fix it, it’s not driving anywhere anytime soon. And, if by some miracle it _can_ , have you looked at my leg lately?”

Sam eyes trail down Dean’s leg but fly back up, like he shouldn’t be looking. Like he’s not supposed to be noticing that Dean has one leg made of metal and gears. Dean’s told him a hundred times over that he doesn’t care, but it doesn’t seem to be getting through. He. Can. Look.

He just can’t touch…

“You would be able to drive,” Sam says. He leans against the car, hand splaying out against the black metal that actually doesn’t look too bad. Maybe… “Might have to alter a few things in her, but you could drive - amputees drive to the gym.”

“You’re not douching her up,” Dean says.

Dean swallows over the sudden rise in his throat. Sam’s looks away, at the car. His hand runs along her side. Up over the handle, down between the seam of door. Dean reaches out and places his hand on Sam’s, careful not to touch any piece of metal. Not yet.

“You wanna--?” Sam gestures to the toolbox by his feet.

“Shh,” Dean hushes. He’s not ready to do any of that yet, and probably never will be. Dean drops his hand away from Sam’s. “Show me what you’ve learned.”

Dean takes three steps back and can feel the freezing air sweeping against his back. It’s not snow, but it’s close. Sam looks at Dean until Dean thrusts his head toward the tool box. If Sam wants to fix the car, he better do a damned good job of it.

“What do you want me to do?” Sam’s brow is creased and his head the slightest bit on the side. Add the puppy dog look, and Dean would be tempted to throw him a ball.

“Fix her.”

Sam’s hand slides over the car again while he watches Dean. He walks around the car, steps incredibly slow and uncertain, before stopping at the popped hood. He looks back at Dean, like he’s waiting for a written invitation or something. Dean trusts Sam, of course he does.

“Well, come on,” Dean says.

Sam leans over and picks up a socket-wrench. He twists it in his hand as Dean watches. Silent.

Eventually Sam leans over the engine and gets to work. Sam’s a broad expanse of plaid-covered shoulders and back, and occasionally Dean sees a glint of silver from the impala’s engine whenever Sam moves to the side. From the distance, she looks fine. That doesn’t mean much of anything, he’ll admit. He would have to be there, have to press everything in the engine, listen to her roar to life, run his hand over every panel and every piece of leather.

He won’t be doing any of that. So he takes Sam’s word for it.

“Put your shoulder into it,” he calls into the wind. It’s picking up and the few straggling leaves leftover from autumn blow past the garage.

Sam looks back at him and the wind whips his hair away from his face. “Why don’t you come show me?”

Snowflakes start falling in front of Dean’s eyes and he can feel them, cold and wet, seeping down his neck. Dean steps forward, only three steps, until he’s within the garage’s building.

“Effort, Sam.” Dean leans against the wall that acts as a windbreak. It’s instantly warmer inside. “She’s tough.”

Sam doesn’t make any effort to follow Dean’s instructions.

Dean pushes off the wall with the ball of his foot and walks over to his brother, sliding his hand down Sam’s arm and lacing their fingers together. The socket-wrench is hooked around the carburetor, so it least Sam isn’t doing something really fucked up. “Now, turn.”

Sam listens, and it finally dawns on Dean that his brother was acting like an idiot on purpose. Dean moves his hand away and Sam smirks over his shoulder. His lips slide across Dean’s jaw until Dean takes a step back.

“It should be you doing this,” Sam says.

Dean moves his hand away and walks back over to the wall.

“You’re doing fine,” Dean says.

It only takes another two twists of the wrench before Sam looks up and moves away from the hood. He drops it back into toolbox where it rattles against ratchets and and screwdrivers and hammers and other wrenches. After wiping his hands against his faded and torn jeans - ones Dean thinks he recognises, from way back - he walks straight to Dean.

Dean lets Sam pull him closer, and he’s hard already. Dean can feel the heat of Sam’s dick against his hip and thrusts toward it. Sam lets out a breathy little groan, so Dean does it again.

“Why -- fuck -- why won’t you touch her?” Sam gets out. His breath is warm against Dean’s neck, his cock hard against Dean’s body.

“Who?” Dean murmurs, not listening nearly enough. “The woman from Christmas? I don’t even remember her name.”

“No.” Sam groans, “Your car. The impala.”

Dean stops kissing and  Sam looks at him. He’s still breathing heavy and it continues to hit Dean’s neck. Warm against the wind that’s now changed directions and blows into the garage. California was supposed to be hot, blistering sunshine and sweltering beaches. Not that Dean could ever go to the beach. Not that he could ever really enjoy the sun. But this...something about it bothers him so much.

Something about Sam’s question bothers him even more. Because it shouldn’t be Sam asking him those things. Dean granted him permission to touch her, for God’s sake. Dean moves his hand again, skitting his fingertips along Sam’s jeans. They haven’t fucked yet, but Dean wants to. He just wants Sam. There’s nothing else worth wanting anymore.

Dean hears footsteps and considers pulling back, but thinks _fuck it_. Sam has other ideas and starts moving away, but Dean holds him steady with hands around his waist and head in his neck.

“Good thing we’re husbands, huh?” he murmurs, sucking a mark into Sam’s skin. He wants them all to see it, to see that he still has this one good thing in his life that is his and only his.

“Not here,” Sam gets in before pulling away from Dean and going back to the impala.

Dean’s biting down on his lip, still tasting Sam, when a woman rounds the corner into the garage. She’s wearing aviator sunglasses and low-rise jeans. She completely ignores Dean to smack Sam’s ass and look into the impala’s engine.

“She’s getting beautiful,” the chick says. “Tender hands, Sammy.”

Okay. That’s enough. Dean steps out from the apparent shadows. He has to clear his throat twice before the woman actually turns and looks at him. Sam is already looking, his eyes never left Dean.

“Lana,” Sam says slowly, and Dean can’t tell if he’s talking to her or letting Dean know her name. “This is my...brother, Dean.”

 _Oh_. Dean takes another step forward, closer to Sam.

“Hi,” he says.

“So this is yours?” She whistles appreciatively and starts walking around the impala. Her hands travel along the impala’s body, and Dean doesn’t like it nearly as much as when Sam did the same. “Gorgeous car. Especially considering you completely rebuilt her. No idea where you got all the parts. But stunning.”

“Sam and me have a friend who has parts,” Dean says. It’s not like his car’s that old - or that uncommon. Or that he didn’t have the desire to fix her. Dean would have found the parts one way or another. He thinks this so-called mechanic should be able to do the same.

“Lucky guys.” Lana stops walking around the car and looks back at Dean. “Have you ever considered becoming a mechanic? We could always use real skill around here.”

He feels Sam tense beside him, but Dean doesn’t do anything. He keeps his eyes on Lana, watching as she continues to touch over his car. She hasn’t noticed the busted leg, but she would with. Everybody does. Dean shakes his head.

“Nah,” he says. “Not my jib.”

“What?” Sam asks quietly, but Dean chooses to ignore him.

“Anyway,” Dean says. “Snow’s stopped. I’m going to head home before it starts up again. Look after my car.”

He doesn’t wait for a response, he turns and starts walking. It hasn’t stopped snowing.

::

Sam can’t concentrate.

His hands keep slipping from the tools and Lana laughs at him a handful of times before telling him he should go home.

“A snowstorm’s forecasted,” she says. “It might be wise.”

Sam looks outside and can see the swirl of snow dancing in the wind. When he last lived in California there was never this much snow. Winters were cold but sunny, and you could usually ditch the coat by lunch. Now he’s donned three sweaters and a huge windbreaker before stepping out into the frigid air. He should buy gloves, but Dean would probably laugh. Asshole.

“Oh, and Sam?” Lana yells at him. He turns to her. “See if your brother won’t change his mind. We could use some more quality hands around here. And the pay rate isn't too shabby.”

“Will do,” Sam calls back, but considering the strength of the wind it may have been carried away.

A normally twenty minute walk home takes him closer to an hour, and he’s shivering by the time he gets in the door. His teeth chatter and his fingers are turning a strange shade of blue. Sam ditches the coat at the door, watching as a puddle appears almost instantaneously. Dean has the heat turned up to a ridiculous amount, but Sam’s not going to complain about their gas bills today. It’s too nice inside.

He makes his way into the living room and slumps on the couch, throwing his legs up onto the coffee table like he’s told Dean not to do so many times before. There’s crumbs littering it and a puddle of something he hopes is water. Sam wrinkles his nose; it was Dean’s turn to clean today.

Heavy footsteps tell Sam that Dean has finally decided to appear. He turns and watches his brother walk into the room and deposit himself on the armchair nearby, even though there’s still ample room on the couch.

“Come here,” Sam says. He pats his hand against the back of the couch and Dean shakes his head. He’s staring at the table, but there’s nothing there to focus on. Sam drops his hand away. “What’s up?”

“Nothing.” Dean’s still staring.

“Are you mad at me?” Sam knows he should have told him about working on the car, but Dean didn’t seem angry at the garage.

“No.”

“Want to go to bed?”

“You haven’t even eaten lunch.”

Sam shuffles across the couch until he can throws his legs over the edge and reach Dean’s thigh. He runs his foot up his brother’s thigh until Dean finally looks at him. His eyes are as cold as the snow outside. Sam moves his foot away.

“Dean,” Sam says softly. “What’s wrong?”

“Did you tell her to say that to me?” Dean asks. His voice is just as cold as his eyes.

“Say what to you?” Sam stays soft, but he does sit up a little more. He thinks back over the day, and only one thing sticks out in his mind. “The mechanic thing?”

Dean nods.

“No.” Sam had actually been bothered hearing it; he already knew what Dean’s reaction would be.

Dean’s looking back at the table again. His fingers dig into his jeans. “I can’t do it, Sam.”

“You don’t have to.”

“No, I--” Dean looks up and rubs his tongue over his lips. “None of it. There are people in the paper every day - in this town alone - that are probably getting slaughtered by monsters. Even if I give every single one of them to Bobby there’s not enough hunters in the world to save them--” He cuts off and hangs his head.

A part of Sam really wants to feel empathetic toward his brother. He’s seen those news articles. He reads the paper every day at the library, or the gym, or the garage. He pores over the obituaries and feels his chest clench when he reads something he just knows is a haunting. When he watches the weather at night and hears about storms all he can think is demon. But there’s another part of Sam - a part that is so tired of Dean martyring himself.

“Are you that hell-bent on proving a point?” Sam says, loud enough that it feels strange in the room when they’ve been speaking so quietly prior.

Dean looks back up.

“Seriously, Dean. Why do you keep doing this?” Sam waits for an answer that doesn’t come and continues, “We have done so much. Can’t you understand that?”

“People are dying, Sam.” The words sound meek.

“Why do _we_ have to save them?”

Dean lapses back into silence.

“We’ve saved so many.”

He’s so tired, and knows Dean is, too. They’ve both been doing this for so long. It’s like a weight on his shoulders, on his back, on his head. On every part of his body. Ever since the crash he feels like he’s been thrown into the water with them on, and he can’t keep treading water. No man can have that much strength.

“You can fix the car,” Sam says. “That’s something you _can_ do.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I just can’t, Sam!” Dean gets to his feet and stands over Sam. “That car, it’s the reason we can’t hunt. It’s the reason I’m fucking bionic man. Don’t you get that? All these fucking years and you still don’t get that?”

It had been an inkling in the back of his mind almost since the start, watching as Dean shut down at the mention of the impala or winced when a car with a V8 engine roared past. But hearing it out loud. It’s like another part of Dean has been torn away, ripped to shreds. It hurts. It fucking hurts.

“You don’t have to--” Sam tries. “I’m sorry--”

“Save it.” Dean looks away and shakes his head. Sam watches Dean’s throat work over as he clears it. “The Winchesters are all dead or out of action. Say goodbye to a legacy.”

“Why did we ever need a legacy in the first place?”

Dean closes his eyes for a brief moment and opens them again once he’s looking at Sam. Sam’s never seen him so afraid, so torn up inside. It does the same to Sam.

Sam struggles to get the words together but then, “If saving these people is really important to you, then I’ll quit school. We can hunt, we can see how far we can go with your leg. Is that what you want?”

“I don’t want you to quit school.” Dean - finally - sits on the couch. “I always wanted you to have this life, Sam. I’m glad you stood up to Dad. I’m glad you went to Stanford the first time.”

Sam turns so his body is positioned facing Dean. He thinks Dean’s telling the truth. He’s looking right at him, eyes trained on Sam’s. There’s also the smallest trace of a smile on his lips. Sam wants so badly to believe.

“Do you want to hunt?” Sam asks so quietly he might as well not have bothered.

Dean doesn’t answer, instead he leans across the couch and kisses Sam. There’s so much more they need to say, to figure out, but for now Sam goes with this.

He slides his hands under Dean’s shirt, and his brother’s hotter than the air around them. Even his hands are burning as they touch Sam’s back and urge him down so they’re pressed against the couch that’s really too small for two full-grown men. Like everything else, it hardly matters. But the question still lingers and even kissing and rutting against Dean isn’t making it disappear.

“Do you...want to hunt?” Sam gets out between gaps in mouths.

Dean still doesn’t answer. Instead he gets his hands down the back of Sam’s jeans and Sam knows he’s just trying to stall conversation. It’s working, God is it working, but Sam can’t let it go. He has to keep asking.

“Dean,” he says, trying to keep his voice steady. “Dean.”

“I want you, okay?” Dean murmurs against his throat. “Whatever you want, I’m there. Now, please.”

Sam wants to stay more. He wants to press and pull until the truth is spilled out there, plain and clear. But Dean is twisting his cock in a way that makes Sam’s brain melt and rational conversation becomes an impossible task. He lets Dean strip him naked and returns the favour. Getting pants off can still be an ordeal but it’s more just _this-is-how-to-get-Dean-naked_ than _this-is-how-to-get-an-amputees-pants-off_ so that helps. A lot.

“So, fucking,” Dean says once they’re naked and hard and together. He sucks what feels like another mark into Sam’s skin. “We ever going to get around to that?”

All Sam can think to do is nod.

“Good,” Dean says. He sounds relieved. He turns to rustle around in the coffee table drawer and triumphantly holds up a bottle of lube in his clenched fist. “I’ve been waiting for this.”

“Not yet,” Sam murmurs. He ghosts his hands over where Dean’s leg would have been, keeping a solid gaze on Dean’s eyes all the while. Dean’s eyes don’t change right away - he seems to not _get_ what Sam’s doing - until…

Dean lets out a soft breath and his eyes close. Sam sees his cock twitch and leans up to kiss it. Just the tip. Salty from precome and very much the taste of _Dean_ all through. Sam’s hands remain in the empty space. Touching, pressing, feeling. And he can feel. All of it.

“Sammy,” Dean whispers.

* * *

 

  
  


“It looks like everything’s paid off,” Lori says. She hands Sam a thick stack of stapled papers containing every cent and dollar they had owed to the hospital and physiotherapist. She’d told him earlier that Dean’s treatment was life-long, but at least that chunk of unfair medical payment crap was done with. “You still have my card if you ever need me, but my breathing-down-your-neck job is done and dusted.”

Sam smiles. “If _that_ was breathing down our necks, I’d hate to see what some of the other workers are like.”

She returns Sam’s smile with a grin of her own. “You’d be surprised. How are things at home, Sam?”

Every time someone asks Sam about his personal life, there has to be a moment where he swallows hard and works to recall exactly what story they know. At least as hunters the lies were frequent but pointless - fake stories for a week in a town before onto the next. In this world they were either husbands or brothers and it was important not to confuse the two.

Even if Sam himself was confused sometimes.

“They’re fine,” Sam says. “Dean’s coping - he seems to be improving.”

Lori shifts the slightest bit forward. “And you?”

“Fine,” Sam says.

She doesn’t believe him, that much is clear, but she politely doesn’t push and Sam is thankful. He’s afraid one day someone is going to push and push until Sam blurts out the whole story from start to finish. _Fucking his brother_. That’s sure to go over well.

“Are you planning to keep up both your jobs?”

Sam shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess so. I’d go crazy sitting at home all day.”

“That’s fair. I’m sure you’ll make all the right choices, Sam.”

 _She_ might be sure, but Sam isn’t.

::

Dean cooks dinner most nights. At first, the routine fell solely on Sam, then they found their way back to take-out and microwave dinners. But he finds himself at home in their little kitchen; all the things are within his reach and he can forget about his leg while the pot simmers and the fry pan sizzles.

Of course he fucks up more meals than he perfects, but that’s what you get for a life on the road.

“Smells good,” Sam calls from the lounge. He’s not allowed in the kitchen when Dean’s there - he gets in the way with height and limbs everywhere.

“Shh,” Dean calls back.

He serves up what the internet recipe says is chicken pesto but with the bacon and cream he’s decided to say it’s carbonara-inspired. Sam sits at the table when he hears the clanging of plates and they eat in silence for the most part.

It’s comfortable.

::

Bobby swears to keep mum on all possible hunts and only report them to Sam if they hit within a ten mile radius.

“We’ve got hunters around there, too, Sam,” he says. “You don’t need to do anything at all.”

“I know.” Sam chews on his thumbnail. “I just...I need this.”

“Okay, son. You know what’s right for you.”

_Click._

::

Sam makes his way to back to the garage after two weeks away. The impala...she’s finally starting to look like a car again. Panels back on and polished, her natural purr healthy and strong. All that’s missing is her hood and wheels, but they’ll be back on soon. In no time at all.

“Hey Sam.” Rick sticks out a greasy hand and Sam’s learned to take it without a hint of hesitation. In the next five minutes his hands will be just as coated in grime. “Glad to see you back. Though we probably don’t need much more time on her.”

“Oh?” Sam says. He runs his hands along the side of the car. A perfect sleek black. Just like Dean always tried to keep her.

“Yup.” Rick shoves his hat further back over his head, greasy bangs spilling forward. “Reckon I can get everything done in three days. Four, tops. That’s ensuring the engine’s still sound, mind, but I’m not too worried. She’s a toughy.”

“Yeah,” Sam says with a small smile. “Just like her owner.”

::

It still hurts.

The pain isn’t necessarily any _better_ or any _worse_ than when Dean first started, but it maintains a steady ache with every stretch and every awkward movement that isn’t walking slow or lying flat.

“You’ve come a long way, Dean,” his new physiotherapist says. He reminds Dean of a primary school teacher, all sugar-sweet but there’s spice lingering under the surface when Dean fucks up or admits ‘I can’t.’

“Yeah,” Dean grunts out. “Well.”

Truth is, Sam thinks things are going better than the reality and it’s pissing Dean off daily. His brother seems to have this idea that Dean’s leg will magically grow back ten times stronger and faster and whole.

Sam was always a realist - except when it came to Dean.

“Believe what you will, but the proof is here even if the positivity isn’t.”

“Bite me,” Dean murmurs under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.” He drags himself to the end of the bars and can finally, _finally_ , sit down again. “I’m doing well, apparently.”

“Certainly.”

This guy’s attempt at optimism makes Dean’s teeth grind.

“I think we’ve achieved a lot here today.” The physiotherapist - Dr. Alans or something - says as he comes to shake Dean’s hand. Always with the hand shaking. “I’ll see you again next week.”

 _Or not_. But Dean also knows he’ll be back. Again and again and again until he can walk without wincing and adjust his own prosthesis without his stomach turning. To _see_ what it looks like now...Dean swallows. He wishes he could keep his eyes closed the entire time.

“Is Sam picking you up today?” Dr. Alans asks.

“Nope,” Dean says as he grabs his crutch. Down to one now, even if Dr. Alans makes a disapproving face when Dean announced as such. “Sammy’s off to become a lawyer.”

“Oh really?” Dr. Alans seems genuinely shocked. Maybe he thinks Dean can’t do anything on his own, even with Sam only being gone a few hours daily. “Here in California?”

“Yup,” Dean says, edging toward the door. “Stanford.”

“Huh.” More musings that take on the tone of shock. As much as Dean’s still kind of pissed at his brother for the chirpy, you-can-do-anything attitude he’s bestowed on Dean’s recovery, he still respects his brother’s intellect and drive for school. “He’ll be the best lawyer in the state soon enough.”

Rather than let Dr. Alans think of something else to say, likely along the lines of Dean needing a carer and-or Sam not being lawyer material, Dean leaves the office and makes his way down the corridor. Being home without Sam still isn’t a place of enjoyment, but Dean chooses not to bitch and just accept the way things are.

It’s bright and hot outside, and Dean really needs to invest in some sunglasses but there’s some small, niggling part of him that says they won’t be in California much longer. They could be in rainy Washington or Oregon, hunting dank and dark witches who use the states to hide out. Having a home seems foreign and Dean, in complete honesty, doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like it one bit.

Before he knows it, Dean is making his way toward the garage. He doesn’t stop when the realisation hits him. He doesn’t even want to.

::

Sam slides into bed quietly, trying not to wake Dean. It doesn’t work, of course; years of waking to the slightest pin-drop has kept Dean razor sharp. He rolls over and murmurs, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Sam whispers back. He leans down and kisses Dean. Dean responds by dragging Sam onto the bed, cupping his face, and deepening the kiss. His breath is even hotter in the dark and Sam finds it intoxicating. As exhausted as he is, this perks him up like crazy.

“You need to be home more,” Dean says as he makes short work of Sam’s boxers. He grips Sam’s cock and tugs it a few times as he says, “But it at least it makes you ready to go.”

“Mhmm.” Sam looks down and smiles at Dean. “ _Raring_.”

Dean kisses him again and then rolls over, throwing Sam a look over his shoulder that has _lust_ written on every square inch with thick lettering. Sam moves to the bedside drawer and pulls out the lube.

Dean’s already got his boxers down and a hand around Sam’s cock. Always ready to go and not letting anything stop him. Much less Sam’s crazy schedule and late night returns home. He leans further into the kisses, like he’s grabbing them for all he’s worth. Not willing to miss a second of this. Not a single one.

Sex always feels like fireworks. Cliche sparks shooting into the sky and back into Sam’s body. He thinks Dean feels the same - the way his back arches and eyes flutter closed. The fireworks last long after the orgasm.

Sam hopes this is a sign of their life from now on.

::

In some ways, it’s like Sam never left school. The classes, the studying, the incessant intake of caffeine until his eyeballs feel red-raw and his heart is threatening to beat out of his chest. Still, it’s a hell of a lot less stressful than hunting.

Sometimes, though, there’s only so much he can humour and distract himself before the reality of the situation worms its way in and hits him like lightning on metal.

_I am a hunter._

_I am in love with my brother._

Those two statements seem so entwined and Sam doesn’t even know where to find the frays and begin unthreading. He closes his textbook, rubs his eyes, and decides to head home.

“Hey Sam.”

Sam looks up to see Grady, a guy from his criminal defence course. Three textbooks are teetering dangerously under his arm.

“Hey,” Sam says. He forces himself to forget about Dean for a moment and smile.

“A couple of us guys are thinking about hitting the bar tonight. You interested?”

The _yes_ settles on Sam’s tongue but refuses to pass through his lips. He can’t keep doing this to Dean. He can’t keep abandoning him for school. Not after everything. Sam shakes his head.

“Sorry,” Sam says. “Maybe some other time.”

Grady shrugs. “Sure thing, man. Catch ya.”

Sam leaves quickly after that.

::

Dean isn’t home.

Not entirely abnormal, considering he’d been attending physiotherapy twice weekly instead of once. Sam was proud and tried telling Dean once, but was met with a grunt. He thought Dean appreciated it all the same.

As soon as Sam sits down, his phone buzzes. _Bobby_ is the name flashing on the screen. Sam answers with apprehension clawing up his chest. _Please let everything be okay, please let everything be okay…_

“Hey Bobby.” Sam tries to keep his voice clear and steady, but fails.

“Hi Sam. Sorry it’s been a while but with everything going on…” Bobby trails off and Sam doesn’t push. Sam himself should have called, but he was afraid. Back to being that kid who had just learned about monsters and not believing in himself enough to defeat them. Suburbia had gripped him good. “But I know you wanted me to keep you posted - and I’ve got a salt and burn not too far from you. No obligation, just thought I’d let you know.”

“Thanks Bo--” Sam begins. The front door opens and closes. Sam lowers his voice, “Thanks Bobby. I’ll let you know.”

Sam hangs up and stretches out nonchalantly as Dean walks into the room. His grey shirt looks dirty; Sam hopes he didn’t have a fall.

“What did Bobby want?”

 _Damn_. “He - uh - he just wanted to know how you were.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Lie harder, Sam. Bobby’s not one for small talk and you know it - besides I called him yesterday to say how I was.”

Sam stammers and Dean just keeps staring. Eventually, he sighs. “A hunt. Bobby wanted to know if we were interested in a hunt.”

He may have been silent before, but after those words were out Dean’s silence takes on a more palpable aura. It coats the room until Sam wishes he could take the words back and forget all about it. This is their new life - Dean is getting better and Sam is going to law school. Why did he even have to chance fucking this up?

“I told him we’re not,” Sam says quietly. “I told him we’re done.”

“Okay.”

And that’s that.

Later, Sam calls Bobby and says, “We can’t”, which is met with understanding and acceptance. Dean watches TV and drinks a beer. Sam can’t tell what he’s thinking.

::

One morning, Sam wakes up early to find Dean gone. These physiotherapy sessions are getting insane - but Sam supposes that’s a good thing. It means Dean will be back to a closer version of his old self soon enough. Or at least more content with the changes now. He thinks his brother - or, if he’s being honest, both of them - have adapted enough by now. They know what they’re doing. It isn’t always easy, but falling into a soft and solid routine has worked wonders.

Sam runs a hand through his hair and gets out of bed. He yawns as he reaches the kitchen and switches on the coffee pot. Totally cold. Strange. There’s also no paper on the bench. Sam shrugs, figures Dean was in a rush, and goes outside.

The sun is just rising, a glisten behind the houses. Sam has to shade his eyes but his ears are still working. That grumble. That _roar_. He still doesn’t know what he’s seeing until it stops. Black, sleek. Dean steps out. It’s like nothing had ever changed. It’s like years ago.

Dean smiles and it rivals the sun with its brightness. “Heya, Sammy. We got work to do.”


End file.
